


End of the Line

by unicyclehippo



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, F/F, blood warning, death warning, this sounds super dark but there is a happy(ish) ending i promise, zombie apocalypse AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:46:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4317495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When her world ended that afternoon and she was running for her life, she took comfort in the fact that if she died, she at least looked amazing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

She was wearing a dress the day the world ended.

There were no lab pracs requiring long pants and closed in shoes - just a nice study session in the morning and a talk planned with her course coordination in the late afternoon. It was going to be a nice day and she wanted to feel good. Delicate and sweet and pretty. She wanted to smile at someone and have them stutter out a ‘good morning’ and she wanted the boys playing frisbee to stop and look over her legs appreciatively and she wanted the girls who made up her study group to ask her where she got her dress and maybe to flirt with her a little, knowing that she was taken but being unable to resist the light banter. That was what she wanted. Hence, the dress with the floral print that fitted her boobs amazingly well, with the skirt to it that swirled prettily and ended just above her knees. Hence, the light cotton jacket, the cute strappy shoes, the hair delicately curled, and the hint of mascara on her eyelashes.

Delicate.

Sweet.

Pretty.

//

When her world ended that afternoon and she was running for her life, she took comfort in the fact that if she died, she at least looked amazing. 

//

It happened like this: she heard the rumble of the classroom next door as chairs scraped back and the students stood to leave. It was lunch time - she clicked her phone to check and it told her 1:02 - and she knew that everyone would be in the cafeteria so she shook her head when her study buddy asked if she wanted to get something to eat. 

"Too many people," she said. "How about we finish this seemingly never-ending chapter," she huffed a laugh, "and get something at that cute cafe on the river when we're done?"

The nod the girl gave her was quick and eager and she blushed after, at herself maybe or because the way Clarke shifted forward then gave her an excellent view of her chest. Her eyes dipped lower and snapped back to her textbook, pink cheeks intensifying to red, and Clarke gave her a slow smile. She loved seeing people blush. 

Nothing would happen between them - Clarke wasn't precisely single - but she did touch the girls' hand when she reached over to turn the page and she bit her lip, lowered her voice, batted her eyelashes. "Let's start here, okay?"

The girl blushed again and Clarke shared her textbook for the rest of their session, despite the obvious fact that she had one of her own. 

//

It happened like this: Wells called her. 

"Where are you?"

"Uh, I just finished studying with Amanda," she told him, and waved at the girl to go ahead of her. "We're about to get coffee, why?"

" _Where_ , Clarke?"

"Umm." She looked around for the name of the nearest building - it took for a moment, she wasn't on that side of campus usually, she just liked studying there because the English whatever majors made just enough noise discussing their books that it helped her think, but not too much that she was distracted. "Hugo Brown Annex. Look, it's just coffee, I'm not doing anything-"

"Where is your car?"

"In the car park? By the swimming pool. Wells, what's going on? Do you need something?" There was an edge to his voice that made her nervous and she frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"I need you to listen to me very carefully." She did. His voice echoed oddly, like he was in a bathroom or something, like it was bouncing off the tiles. "Something is happening, something bad. You need to get to your car. Don't stop for any reason. Avoid everyone."

She started to laugh, looked around the courtyard for him or one of his friends with a camera or something. This had to be a joke. "Wells, what are you talking about?"

"Just trust me, please," he said. 

And she did. Her feet began to move quickly in the direction of the car ark. She had known him for years and she could tell he was being serious. About what, she wasn't sure exactly, but he was serious and it began to feel oddly like...like the sun had been covered and it didn't change anything, there was no difference, but she couldn't feel the warm heat on her skin in quite the same way and a chill skittered down her spine. Every shadow that used to be the dappling of leaves on the walls seemed suddenly sinister and strange. The quiet places were threatening and the noisy a different kind of threat. And she couldn't explain why. 

"Where are you?" she asked when she reached her car.

"That's not important."

"It is, Wells. Are you at uni?" He hesitated. "Let me rephrase this," she said. "I'm not leaving without you."

//

It happened like this: she found a crowbar in the boot of her car and took off again into the university.

He was somewhere in the psychology section, he said, and she had been there enough times - thank god for lunch dates - that his whispered instructions of "left at Freud, left again, third door at the end, disabled bathroom" actually made some kind of sense. 

It was when she was making her way to his building, however, that she saw it.

The cafeteria was bloated with blood. 

It was on the walls, it was seeping out the doors. She could see handprints and, and she could see splatters across the walls and she could see, oh  _god_ , she saw someone slammed up against the door and they saw her too, they must have, because they reached out toward her and she was stuck, frozen. They opened their mouth but something came up behind them and. More blood. 

Her breath caught in her throat, clawed at her gag reflex. When he said something bad she thought, yes, okay, something bad. But she never thought, she could never have thought...

She ran. 

She found Wells in the bathroom and they took the stairs up the back of the building to the second floor, across a pathway. They didn't think about what the dark red slick marks were and they kept running. There was a tree outside the first window of the next building over and the window made a hair-raising squeal when Clarke pried it open - she swore it could be heard in New Zealand but he just shushed her and urged her to work faster, to get it open just far enough for them to squeeze out. 

"My car," she murmured to him, nodding out the window down to the ground level. 

It wasn't far. But the tree was thin, thinner than they had thought, and they both knew it was likely to break under their weight. A door opened somewhere in the building below them and, since there was nowhere else to go but up and only one more level to the building, Wells nodded. 

"Go," he urged. "You're smaller. You go first. Less chance it'll break."

She jumped. Scraped her hands on the rough bark and there was going to be a huge bruise on her shoulder from where the crowbar slammed into her - there was  _no way_ she was letting go of it, not a chance in hell, but it made her grip clumsy at best and it was a slow descent. Which wasn't doing them any favours so, as soon as she was sure she wasn't going to break her ankles, she dropped. Then it was Wells' turn. And then they were running again. 

"You have to tell me what the fuck is happening," she demanded when they made it to the relative safety of her car. 

He sunk into the passenger seat, rubbed at his cheeks then hard across his forehead. "I don't know." Repeated it, to himself maybe. "I don't know."

She thought about asking him if he had seen the things she had. The cafeteria. The blood. The person being - but she didn't ask. 

He had. 

She knew that he must have seen something - if he was calling her breathless and afraid and telling her to run, he had seen something.

So the only reason to ask would be the selfish, selfish reason gnawing at her gut: she doesn't want to be alone with it. With the faces. And the screams. They were screams, she realised, that were ringing in her ears. Not loud but she could identify, with the hammering of adrenaline easing off, the banging on doors and the screaming. Ever so faintly, the screaming. 

She wished she hadn't heard it. 

Instead of asking, she nodded and placed her hands carefully on the steering wheel. 

"What was it? Terrorists? A school shooting? I didn't hear any guns or anything like that."

"No. No," he said. "I think - Clarke, I swear, I'm not joking." She nodded. "I think it was Tim."

"Tim," she repeated. "I don't understand."

"Tim. He, I was in a lecture. I left for a minute, just a  _minute_ , I had to use the bathroom and when I came back there was blood just  _everywhere,_ " he said quietly, eyes wide. She saw the cafeteria again, just a brief flash, and she reached over to grip his hand tight because he must have been seeing it all over again. She didn't think there was a way to avoid it. "People were screaming," he said, slow and deliberate, eyes fixed straight ahead. His hand tightened on Clarke's. "Tim had blood all around his mouth and he, he looked at me. He looked right through me and then I moved and he," lifted his hand, jabbed his finger like an accusation, " _bam_. Like it was a switch or something. He saw me move and it was just a split second thing and suddenly he looked...hungry."

"He wanted to eat you?"

"Clarke, I swear, I'm not making this up."

"I believe you," she said. She had seen the red silhouettes for herself and there had been no knives or guns, just mouths and hands. And something had happened, that much was obvious. So, whatever it sounded like, she was going to take his word for it. "What did he look like? Did he look sick?" Wells lifted his eyebrows. "Yes, obviously it's sick that he had blood around his mouth. I mean other than that. Jerk."

Wells couldn't help but grin because that was Clarke through and through, part humour, part steely determination to understand, and he was  _so relieved_ that they were together in this. She nudged him and he focused for a moment, thinking. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah actually, he was sweating hardcore. And he was really pale. I remember because the professor-" professor, with glassy eyes and a throat with teeth marks and tears, but he didn't tell Clarke that, "-commented on it. And he basically fell into his seat. Before, I mean. When we were starting class."

Clarke bit at her lip. "Wells?"

"Yeah."

"This is really, really weird but are you thinking..."

"Zombies."

"Oh thank god," she breathed, lowering her head lightly to the ring of her steering wheel. "I didn't want to be the one to say it."

Wells swallowed. Clenched his jaw tight shut. Then, "Yeah," he said. "I'm thinking zombies."

"Zombies," she repeated. She turned on her car and pulled out of the park. "We need to find more people. Put your seatbelt on."

* * *

She drove to her friends house. It wasn't something she really thought about - Bellamy hadn't lived there for a year, more actually. He had moved to join the Army at the end of fourth year - and she almost stopped, it had been a reflex to go there more than anything, before she remembered that he had a little sister. 

There were more of those things at the door to Bellamy's house when they arrived. It was the first time Clarke got to look at them, really look, and they looked just like anyone else she had ever seen on the street. Pale, though, and their eyes were an odd combination of lax and focused, their hands held tight in clawed and angry shapes. Plus, they were growling.  _  
_

Clarke was out of her car in mere moments to push them away from the door, whacking them with her crowbar, pulling them away. 

"Octavia!" she yelled, and she hoped for an open window or something, anything, that meant Octavia could hear her. They were coming for  _her_ then and that wasn't something she had thought about before she stupidly leaped into action. 

She hoped Octavia was still alive. 

She was. There and very much alive and armed with a frying pan, which she used to beat one solidly around the head. Her companion punched one right in the throat - one that had a firm hold on Clarke - and she yanked Clarke inside, Wells stepping quick in behind them and shoving the door closed. 

It shuddered under the force of a dozen or so blows, until Wells helps the girls to tip a bookcase over in front of it. It still shuddered, but it felt less like it would give way at any moment and they retreated a few steps and held their breath until, finally, the blows slowed and lessened and then stopped altogether. 

And then Clarke found that Bellamy's little sister was eighteen and still little - she only came up to Clarke's shoulder. Her face had lost, at some point, the full roundness of childhood and gained a sharpness Clarke recognised Bellamy had as well, especially at her age, and she was tan and gorgeous. Her face was hard too, and Clarke could make out the faint trace of tears under her eyes and streaked on her cheeks. 

"Octavia," Clarke said. "Hi."

And then the girl was checking over Clarke's arms and body with a precise and quick touch and her voice was firm when she asked them, "Are you hurt? Are you bitten?" and when they shook their heads no, her relief was palpable. "What were you  _thinking_ doing something so stupid as running into a whole bunch of them?" she demanded of them, slamming her fist hard into Clarke's shoulder, and then grabbing her tight in a hug. "I'm so glad you're here." _  
_

"Are  _you_ okay? Are you hurt?" Clarke asked in turn, brushing Octavia's hair back to see all of her face. She was thankfully clear of injuries and Clarke ran her hands over all of her that she could reach because Bellamy was one of her best friends and he would need the reassurance so she needed it too. "Are you  _hurt_?" she asked again, hands lifting to cup Octavia's cheeks. 

Octavia shook her head no, turned into those hands gratefully, smiling. "I'm fine," she said. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she said until Clarke finally listened and returned her hug, tugging her forward and clutching her close, fingers pressing into her shoulder blade and back and they weren't close exactly, the last time they had spent more than five minutes together was years ago and Clarke would have been about eighteen herself, but it wasn't strange when Clarke pressed her lips to Octavia's forehead and stroked her hair back behind her ears. "I'm fine," Octavia said again and Clarke relieved breath shuddered out of her. 

"Okay. Good."

After a moment, nodding because Octavia _was_ fine, she was, but Clarke was finding it difficult to let go of her, Clarke made herself turn to the other girl in the room. She was standing behind Octavia and her eyes were restless, flicking from window to window to door to window and starting all over again, and Clarke took the opportunity of her distraction to look her over. She had dark eyes and dark hair and dark skin and she was tall and lean and gorgeous and she looked over Octavia with a fierce protectiveness every minute, nearly on the dot.

“Hi,” Clarke said to her.

“Hey,” she returned. Then, “I’m Raven.”

“Clarke. Nice to meet you. And thank you for,” Clarke jerked her thumb over her shoulder, toward the closed door, “saving my life.”

“Sure, no problem. Don’t sweat it.”

Clarke stepped forward after a moment. Raven was the same age as Octavia, or so it looked, and her hands shook in the same way Octavia’s did so it didn’t take much thought for Clarke to continue moving forward until she was in front of Raven and giving her the same treatment she had given Octavia.

“Are you okay?” She ran her hands over covered arms, shoulders, gave them a little squeeze. Used the very tips of her fingers to check over her neck and cheeks.

Raven looked at her, surprised, but she stood still and let the examination take place. She swallowed twice and glanced over Clarke’s shoulder - probably at Octavia - before she nodded. “Sure. I’m fine.”

“Good. Okay.”

And it was good. Because there were four of them, then, and it wasn’t everyone Clarke knew but it was some of them and they were safe and that was something.

//

“I’m not sure. We have some sport stuff in the garage,” Octavia suggested when Clarke asked about what they had, what they were going to do, how they could protect themselves. “Bell’s cricket gear? It’s basically body armour so that’ll be good to, you know. Not get bitten. It won’t fit me but-”

“It’ll fit me.” Wells shook out his shoulders. Rolled them back and then forward. They ached a little - jumping into a tree and getting hit hard across the shoulders by some zombies would do that. “I’ll get it. Through there, yeah?”

Raven pointed him through to the garage - Octavia took Clarke to the sizeable number of garden tools they had amassed on the kitchen counter. She looked through the ‘weapons’ - a rake, a hoe, a few steak knifes, a wooden cricket bat.

“I think I’ll stick with my crowbar,” she said.

“Yeah. Fair enough. I just thought…”

“No, this is good. Really, O.” She tried out a smile. “You have a sword here.”

“Oh, that’s mine, yeah.” Octavia grabbed it. She strapped it around her shoulders so it slung across her back and drew it out. Clarke made a low, appreciative sound, and Octavia shrugged. “Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”

“It’s lame,” Raven taunted, leaning against the counter with a soda in her hand. “Nerd.”

“It’s a _sword_. It’s cool.”

“You got it at a geek convention. You actually got in your car, drove to a geek convention, bought a _ticket_ to the geek convention, and bought a sword. From-”

“A geek convention. Yeah, I get it. Are you forgetting that you went with me?:”

“You made me go with you!”

“I said please.”

“It’s the same thing,” Raven grumbled, and took a sip from her drink. Her expression fell into a heavy glower when she saw that Clarke was laughing quietly at them. “What?”

“Nothing,” the blonde shrugged.

“Right. Nothing.” Raven narrowed her eyes. She only eased up on her glare when Octavia nudged her and mouthed ‘ _be nice_ ’. It left entirely when she saw Clarke turning over a small, sharp knife in her hand. “I can make you, like, a sheath for that,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Duct tape is actually super versatile.” Raven held out her hand.

“That’s cool,” Clarke said, and she listened to Raven explain the process and pretended like it wasn’t something that was going to be necessary.

//

“So what’s the plan?”

Clarke scrolled through her newsfeeds hoping for something that would tell them what was happening - was it just Brisbane? Was it just Queensland, or just Australia? Was it worldwide? But all the main sites hadn’t been updated in hours and the small news blogs churning out information weren’t helping at all. All she had found was a single, and singularly useless, military announcement repeated across the board - REMAIN CALM was the gist of it.

“Clarke?”

“Huh?” She cast her phone onto the counter top and rubbed at her eyes tiredly. When she looked up, Octavia was looking at her. Her and Wells, but she didn’t really know him so it was Clarke. She was looking at _Clarke_ like she was the one who should know how to fix it all. “I’ve checked in on some hospital records, which is super lowkey illegal but whatever. It’s a virus,” she offered.

“Uh yeah. Zombie virus. We know that.” Octavia gestured to her front door - the bookcase in front of it - and out the windows at the blank faced people still milling in her front yard.

“Takes about a day to present symptoms,” Clarke recited, “sometimes faster, sometimes up to three days. Presents with fever, sweating, loss of sensation to the extremities-”

“Clarke - what do we _do_?”

It was a virus and she was at least half a doctor so she should know what to do. Right? But it was nothing she had ever seen or studied - hell it wasn’t anything _anyone_ she knew had seen or studied - and she felt like laughing, she felt stupid whenever she thought about it because it was a _zombie virus_. It was for books and movies. Not for real life.

And yet there they were.

“Clarke?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “We look for more supplies.”

“We’ve checked the house.”

“Check again. I want to get my hands on a first aid kit - I have one in my car but I don’t want us going out there until we have to.”

“Clarke,” Octavia tried again, but she was cut off by the sound of Clarke’s phone buzzing on the countertop. They leapt for it. The sound was uncomfortably loud and they hoped it hadn’t attracted anything.

“Hello?”

“Clarke?”

“Lincoln?”

“I’ve tried calling everyone,” he said. “My dad, the guys at work, no one is picking up! You’re the first one, Clarke, what the hell is going on?” His voice shook only slightly, but for the most careful and quiet and certain person Clarke knew, that was saying something.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“The train station.”

“Is anyone with you?”

“There are a lot of people with me, Clarke, it’s a train station. But Clarke, something is happening here,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what, I can’t see, but there are people standing around in a group and-”

“Avoid it,” Clarke said quickly. “Get away.”

“Yeah, I, okay.” Lincoln paused. “Oh, I see Monty. And Jasper.”

“Get the.”

“And then what? Where are you? We can come and find you,” he offered.

“No, I’m safe, I’m with Wells and look, Lincoln, we’ll come to you. You just need to stay hidden, okay?”

Lincoln paused. Very seriously, he asked, “What is going on, Clarke?”

“I’ll explain everything when you’re safe. Just - keep your phone on you. Put it on vibrate. You don’t want someone to call you and give you away. Just trust me on that.” Her voice was firm. He didn’t need to hear that she was afraid too. He already knew, but he didn’t need to hear it. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“We’re coming to get you. Just…”

“Stay hidden. Got it.”

She thought for a moment about giving the phone to Wells and having Lincoln stay on the line but her battery was getting low and she wanted him to stay quiet, so there really wasn’t any point. So she hung up on him instead and turned to Octavia.

“Is Bellamy’s Jeep still here?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Get a bag, all of you. Pack some food, water bottles, whatever you think will come in handy. And an extra weapon and some for the guys. I’m going to get changed.” Because of course it would happen on the day she wore a dress. She plucked at it. “Hey, O, do you know where Bellamy’s jacket is?” she asked, because if she had to go all active attire and dangerous, she wanted to do it in leather clad style.

“No.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. “You have it, don’t you?”

“...Yeah.” Octavia sighed before grabbing Clarke’s hand. “Hey Raven, pack a bag for me?” she asked, not waiting for her friend to salute her before she dragged Clarke up the stairs to Bellamy’s room. “Okay, jeans in that drawer over there, shirts in the cupboard,” she point, “and you can get changed here. I’ll be right back.”

Clarke sorted through to the bottom of the drawer. Bellamy had always been taller than her but his jeans from when he was younger ought to be about her size. She tugged them on - not a perfect fit but they would do - and found a few shirts that would fit before picking the first. Blue. It would bring out her eyes.

“Oh yeah, blue is good on you. Really brings out your eyes,” Octavia said, stepping back into the room. “And here you go, one jacket. It’s too big for me anyway,” she said as she handed it over. It caught on her fingers and the way she disentangled her hand was all reluctance. A reluctance that faded when she saw how good Clarke looked in leather. “Holy shit.”

“Hot?”

“ _Mega_ hot,” Octavia confirmed.

“Nice.” Clarke adjusted the collar and frowned at herself in the mirror. “Something like this whole,” she waved out the window, “calls for a ponytail, doesn’t it?”

“Yep. Probably.” The younger girl played with her bangs, standing on her tiptoes to see over Clarke’s shoulder. “I know,” she lamented sympathetically. “I did my hair this morning. It looked amazing.”

“Can’t be helped, I guess.” Clarke tied her hair back. “I can work with this.”

“Did I mention you look hot?”

Clarke grinned at her. “You know, you did say something like that, thank you.” She reached over, straightened Octavia’s ponytail. “Now come on, we need to go. You look great in those jeans, by the way.”

“Thank you! I got them half price.”

//

Lincoln made five. Monty six, and Jasper seven.

//

“I just saw-”

“Yeah.”

“That was disgusting.”

“It was _cool_.” Monty cuffed Jasper around the back of the head, Octavia and Raven each slapped the boy on the leg with forceful accompanying glares. “Alright, alright, not cool. Not cool.”

“It’s not cool,” Lincoln said. “So that’s what’s happening. Zombies.”

“Zombies.”

“This is a real thing. Not, like, a zombie walk.”

“It’s real.”

“Wow.”

“Yep.”

They drove in silence for a time before the dangers of being in a vehicle - a very _loud_ and largely indefensible vehicle - became apparent.

“There are a lot of them following us,” Monty pointed out.

Clarke looked up at her rearview mirror and flattened her lips, determined. “I see them. We need to lose them.”

“Well we can’t go back to my house. They heard the car sat up and swarmed the place, I saw it” Octavia warned her, leaning over the back seat to talk in her ear. “Ooh I like your earrings.”

“Thanks.”

“They are nice,” Raven chimed in. “Where did you get them?”

“This little stall at a market I visited. I have no idea what they’re called, sorry.”

Jasper cleared his throat. “Not that it isn’t _super important_ that you three discuss your cute little earrings and all that girly stuff, but hello? Zombies?”

“Screw you, Jasper,” Octavia said.

“Yeah, screw you Jasper.”

“Do you think they make earrings for men?” Lincoln asked, leaning forward to look at them. “I like them.”

“Mate,” Wells frowned over at him from the front seat, twisting in place to look back at him. “They’re earrings. Do you have a piercing? You can totally wear whatever you want, they shouldn’t be gendered or anything. Go for your life.”

“Yeah, true, cool.” Lincoln nodded. "You know, that silver would look totally cool against your skin, Wells. You should think about getting a piercing."

“Yeah?" Wells frowned thoughtfully. "Cool. I'll think about it.”

“So back on topic,” Clarke said, her hands shifting on the steering wheel. “They can hear the Jeep, they hate the Jeep, and they’re following us. I suggest we dump the car and take everything we can carry and run for it. Find a place, stay there for a bit.”

“And then what?” Jasper asked. “Fine another house? Run some more? What are we _doing_?”

“We will find someone.” Wells reached back to clap a hand reassuringly on Jasper’s shoulder. “We will find the police or the army and we will get somewhere safe. It will be okay. You’ll see.”

No one looked wholly convinced, but maybe a little relieved that he had made the promise anyway.

//

The promise lost its edge soon enough. That afternoon, in fact.

Lincoln had to kill one.

They walked together in a nervous clump bristling with weapons after they ditched the Jeep - the lack of four safe walls or a growling engine made them feel exposed and they knew that they had to find a place to stay, especially as the sun dipped lower behind the mountain and made the streets eerie and dark. So, armed with their expanding arsenal of garden tools and sporting equipment, they made their way down the street.

They were arguing.

“We can’t just _walk into someone's house_ ,” Wells said. “It’s illegal.”

“Yeah, it’s also the only way we’re going to survive the night,” Octavia said right back, and the whole scene would have been comical - tiny Octavia on tiptoes, arguing with the toweringly tall Wells - if it weren’t for the quickly encroaching knowledge that they needed to get off the streets. Very soon.

Lincoln and Clarke stood on the edge of the group, rolled their eyes. She was about to step in and thank Wells for his impeccable moral fibre but agree with Octavia when Lincoln saw it.

It lurched around the corner. Stopped, cocked its head to the side. Then it came right for them.

It wasn’t fast.

It felt like it was.

In truth, it moved at a reasonably quick shamble. But they were frozen in place. There was something about it - the human face, the intent but creepily blank eyes, the inhuman drive to eat and kill maybe - that made everything feel like it was going too fast and there wasn’t enough time to run let alone think.

The sledgehammer was in his hand.

It had a heft to it that felt comfortable and right in his hand but there was nothing right about the sound it made when it slammed into a rib cage. It was a wet sound, a solid kind of crunch. Like broken glass under a heavy boot, almost. Except it was skin and muscle and fat and flesh and bone and human. And the sound the hammer made against a skull was different again. Still a crunch. But wetter. Brain and blood were in greater supply there, they guess.

Well. They saw it.

Lincoln grabbed Clarke and pulled her back, away, both of them retreating further into the group. It twitched, the thing, shuddered and fell still. Its breath whistled out. “I think it’s got a punctured lung,” Clarke explained quietly. “Plus…” She waved her hand at the remainder of its face.

Lincoln couldn’t pull his eyes away. “It was the only thing I could do,” he said.

No one had asked - no one had or would question him at all. It was the only thing to do and they knew it. His grip shifted on the heavy hammer and Clarke turned sharply, jerked her head, made them all step back and give him some room. His grip shifted again and he sunk low to his haunches and rested his head against the handle of the hammer. They averted their eyes and tried not to think of how relieved they were that it hadn’t been them.

And how they dreaded the moment when it would be.

“It was the only thing,” Lincoln said again.

Jasper reached out and patted him on the back. “You’re alright, mate, good swing.” He pulled his hand away slowly, awkward, when Lincoln didn’t move and Clarke just _glared_ at him. “I’ll, umm,” he waved in the opposite direction, “go check this house out,” he said and Clarke nodded. Monty followed.

“Wells,” Clarke said. “Go with them?”

“Will do, boss.”

Clarke waited a few moments. She hoisted her crowbar and adjusted the first aid kit she had compiled so it wasn’t in the way of her swing. She kept a close eye on the streets as Lincoln sat - and then, when he looked wildly about, she saw that Octavia sat with him. She rested a small hand on his shoulder and it shifted after a moment to his back, rubbing a small circle. Clarke smiled when Octavia murmured something, couldn’t hear what but it made the grim set of Lincoln’s mouth break into a smile. She said something else that dragged Lincoln’s eyes away from the body and from the red on the head of his hammer and pooling in the street.

“Hey.”

Lincoln and Octavia shot to standing, weapons snapping up, and Jasper jumped backwards.

“No, whoa, chill. It’s cool - the house is clear.”

“You searched everywhere?”

“Everywhere.”

“Okay. Everyone inside then,” Clarke instructed.

//

It was quiet.

It felt wrong. There was something big going on in the outside world and it didn’t touch them, not that night. No danger.

Only, it already had touched them and they could feel it. Their night was divided easily into shifts for sleep and for watch - they’d never done something like that before. Never even had to think about it.

//

Clarke’s watch read 2:19 when Lincoln swung his legs out of bed and walked to the bathroom. They had filled two buckets with water that evening - “sounds carry more at night, y’know. Everything is super still and quiet and shit” Octavia had said, so they washed quickly and sparingly and filled the buckets again - and Lincoln scooped a cup out and stood by the sink, washing his hands slowly and meticulously.

The grey pallor to his cheeks had faded but the worried crease between his eyes was there to stay, she thought. She waited for a while in case he wanted to throw up in private but he just washed and washed and wiped at his hands and forearms so she stood after a short time and walked to lean just outside the bathroom.

“Hey,” she murmured. Handed him her water bottle. It sloshed - half empty - and he nodded a thank you. “You want something to eat?”

He shook his head no.

“You sure? I can whip up a quick muesli bar or I have a jar of Nutella, you can have a spoon of that if you want.” He smiled a little but shook his head no again. “Okay. Want to sit with me? We can keep watch.” Keep awake was implied, and his eyes lingered on the bed for a long moment before he carefully drew out another chair from the table and sat with her. “You did good today,” she said, and then they didn’t speak again.

//

Clarke was second.

She did throw up.

She was too late to save the girl - young, chubby cheeked, blonde, a sharp shard of a knife in her hand - but she did beat the zombie that got her with her crowbar until it wasn’t recognisable anymore.

She thought maybe that might make it easier but, when she was done, adrenaline still rushing through her as she stood over it, when Wells touched her on the shoulder and pulled her away, it turned out it didn’t do a bit of difference. Face or no face, that thing used to be human.

Clarke bent over and emptied breakfast and hot bile onto the road.

“Probably a good thing,” she said, voice hoarse. Wells looked at her with eyes so concerned they made her stomach bubble with acid and fear and a reminder of what she had done - oh god what had she _done_ \- and she lurched forward again, retching. “We, uh, we don’t know how it’s spread yet,” she continued when it was over. “So.” She lifted her hands. They were splattered with red - her face was too, she could feel it - and she knew it was probably a very good thing she had forcibly rid herself of everything in her mouth and stomach.

“We should find some masks,” Wells suggested.

Clarke nodded. Pulled herself out of her sweater. It wasn’t even hers, she had found it in the wardrobe of the house the night before because it got cold in the early morning and her breath had misted in front of her and the leather jacket made her look cool in more ways than one. She struggled when the fabric caught over her head, yanked at it until it pulled free, and tried to slow panicked breathing. But everything smelt like copper and decay and she had to fight not to throw up again.

Quick shallow gasps. Her mouth held open enough that her tongue touched neither roof nor bottom of her mouth - she didn’t want to taste it.

“Clarke,”

“Go. Please,” she added. “I’m fine.”

Wells squeezed her shoulder and gathered two of the others - she didn’t know which - and she looked down at the sweater.

Orange. Not her colour at all. And useless, it didn’t work well at all to wipe away the blood, just streaked it mostly. She pressed harder.

“Here.” Lincoln pressed his handkerchief into her hand. It was wet. “Come on,” he pressed two of his fingers gently to her elbow and dropped his hand away instantly when she flinched.

Clarke froze. She hadn't meant to flinch but she felt like another touch could split her skin right open. Soft. Rotten skin. “Sorry,” she whispered. 

“Nah, it’s okay.” He walked her away from the corpse- body? Neither term helped at all with her rebelling stomach. They stopped at a garden tap and he very carefully fiddled with the spigot and didn’t watch as she dragged the handkerchief _hard_ over her skin (just to prove that she could, that her skin wouldn't break open at the force of it, and because the longer it sat there the more convinced she was that it would stain). He took it from her when he noticed that it had stopped cleaning and had begun to leave, rather, red-stained drips of water over her forearms. Lincoln rinsed it under the tap until the water ran clear then returned it to her.

They worked like that until she was clean - after a minute hesitation, she tilted her face his way and he looked for the last dots of red, tucked away under her chin and collar. When the last of them were gone, he nodded.

“Thank you.” She pulled the leather jacket out of her bag and pulled it on. It wouldn’t keep her very warm at night but at least it was clean. 

“Sure.”

Wells - he had taken Octavia and Raven, apparently - returned with tea towels and handkerchiefs for them to tie around their necks.

“Easy to pull up.” Raven demonstrated, yanking her own red handkerchief up and over her mouth and nose. She paused, posed with her bat, before pulling it down again. “Good, yeah?”

“Super. Also, also,” Octavia jumped in excitedly, “I think we should come up with hand signals. Like, closed fist for stop, you know? Or hold up a couple of fingers for however many people and then to the left, stuff like that.” She grinned when Jasper nodded along with her.

“This isn’t a _game_.” Clarke’s fingers clenched tight into fists. “This isn’t something we can turn off and say oh hey wow that was fun, who wants a snack break.”

Wells spread his hands, soft, impeaching. “Clarke, we’re just trying to make this easier.”

She swallowed hard. Tapped the end of her crowbar - it hadn’t left her side the whole time, she’d held between her legs as she had cleaned herself off - against her boots. Also not hers, she thought. Those were Bellamy’s. And she needed two pairs of socks on for them to fit her feet.

She was a person who wore clothes that weren’t her own and she was a person who knew what it felt like to beat something to death and she didn’t like the way her skin didn’t seem to fit anymore.

“I know,” she offered. Clarke closed her eyes, shook her head quickly. “Sorry. For snapping.”

Octavia gripped her arm. She didn’t flinch and it helped Clarke more than Octavia could have known that she didn’t hesitate to touch her. “I’m sorry,” the girl said seriously. “I didn’t think of how it sounded.”

“No. You’re right. Hand signals are a good idea. We should figure them out tonight.”

“Okay.” Octavia brushed her thumb over Clarke’s forearm. Not much of the pressure made its way through her jacket but enough that Clarke loosened the tension in her shoulders a little. “Sure, Clarke.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Monty suggested. “Nightfall is in,” he checked his watch, “three hours and we need to find a new place before then. Plus some food.”

“Yes,” Jasper cheered under his breath. “What?” he questioned when they looked at him. “I’m a growing boy. I need my snacks.”

//

“Hey Goldilocks.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Move over.” Wells nudged her and then nudged her again when she refused to shift. “Move your butt, Griffin.”

She sighed. Shifted down the mattress a little to give him space to sit. Lincoln looked over for a moment from where he was sitting watch and Clarke shook her head, just a little. He nodded and turned away. And Wells, Wells just dropped into place and reached out for her, wrapping his hand around both of hers clutched tight in her lap. She had been staring at them for a full hour like there was still blood on them and he gave them a reassuring squeeze.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure, whatever. I was just going to say that Jasper is snoring and I’m sick of it.”

“Huh.”

“Yep.”

“We should find something for that or he’ll attract every zombie in a square mile.” She barely tripped over the word anymore.

“Good idea. We’ll look for a pharmacy in the morning.”

“Oh we will, will we?” Clarke huffed a laugh and leaned into him, rested her head on his shoulder. “What happened to the guy who was wildly against looting just the other day?”

“I’m not saying it isn’t wrong. People worked hard for their stores and their homes and we just walk in and take it.”

“Yes, but they’re probably dead,” Clarke pointed out. She shrugged when he grimaced. “Sorry. But we have to get used to that.”

“You’re a delight.”

“All I’m saying is, you know, it’s not like they’re going to see the IOU you left on the desk for the stuff we took-”

“Stole.”

“ _Took_. And they’re not going to thank you for being so considerate.”

“I know.” Wells shrugged, leaned back against the wall. “It makes me feel better though.”

Clarke waited for a long time, a thought bugging at her. Finally, she licked her lips and asked. “Wells?”

“Mm?”

“I saw you praying before.”

“Yeah.”

“The girl we found. Did you pray for her?”

“Yeah.”

Clarke nodded against the sudden uprising of tears that knotted her throat and she leaned heavier into her friend, curled her hands into the warmth of his shirt. “Thanks.”

//

They were almost used to the eerie silence. ASAP, Octavia had jokingly coined their second night when Jasper tumbled up a staircase and they’d had to run and keep running early into the morning.

As Silent As Possible.

They had to be. There were no cars, buses, trains, planes, no yelling, no good mornings, no movies or music playing in the shopping centres. Nothing. So when, in the midst of a rather brutal and silent game of Go Fish with the prize set as Jasper’s boots, they heard the sound of feet slapping on the ground in a sprint and a gabbled mantra of “shit shit shit help me please shit shit help”, they were surprised.

Wells was on his feet first, lead pipe in hand.

Clarke blocked the door, hand held just shy of touching his chest but very much stopping him. “We can’t go out there.”

“We have to.”

“I can hear them, Wells. They are out there and it sucks but we can’t rescue everyone!”

“We have to try, Clarke.” Octavia stood by Wells’ shoulder, her sword drawn. “What good is running and hiding if when we find someone, we don’t save them?”

“There is a horde of them out there!” she hissed, pulling back the curtain so they could see. Dozens of zombies. Dotted across the road, milling in a pack down the street. Vision deadened by night, they could make out the glow of eyes in the shadows and the sulking figures beneath lamp posts. They were all turning toward the boy as he ran. “It’s almost night. We,” she waved her hand between them all, “need to stay safe and be clever about this. We can’t save people if we’ve been eaten because we ran into a horde of them at the first scream from-”

“Murphy.”

“What?”

“It’s Murphy,” Wells told her, his hand twitching back the curtain again to look out at the street. The skin around his eyes was tight, brow furrowed.

“You hate him,” she reminded him. Her words fell flat because Murphy was swearing again and he was being hunted by monsters. Actual monsters. And besides, Wells didn’t hate anyone.

She licked her lips, very much away that every second she stood in the way was another second Murphy could be snatched up and killed. She was already stepping aside when Wells said again, “It’s _Murphy_ , Clarke,” and she growled, jerked her head in a nod, and threw the door open. Everyone was already on their feet - Jasper had quickly done up the laces on his boots - and they readied themselves to run. Weapons in hand.

Clarke felt a pang in her chest, bile rising quickly, when she saw it. Their determined faces. Their steady hands. She swallowed it down though and hardened her face and took strength from the knowledge that she was ready too, even though none of them should be.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

This wasn’t what their lives were supposed to be.

But she had thrown the door open so outside they went. Jasper and Lincoln to the left, Raven and Octavia to the right, Wells and Clarke and Monty sprinting straight for Murphy.

He scrambled on the asphalt, pushed himself up. Wells grabbed his shoulder and pulled - another hand grabbed his ankle, clawed into him, and he kicked his boot into its face. Clarke took over when it staggered back, slamming her crowbar across it so hard it spun away, and she grabbed Murphy’s other shoulder and helped Wells to haul the boy to his feet.

“Took you long enough,” he gasped out, bent over at the waist.

Clarke shook her head. “Party isn’t over, Murphy. _Run_.”

* * *

After that night, it all happened too fast to distinguish who killed what or in what order. All they knew was that by the end of the first week, they’d all been far too close to a zombie for comfort, they couldn’t sleep properly if at all, it was hard to get red out from hair and under nails, and Wells’ reassurances of “we will be okay” became less and less convincing until he stopped saying it altogether.

The hardest part of the whole thing were the faces.

The ones they couldn’t save.

There were a lot.

Clarke was fairly sure they each had their own list. She had one, tucked into the first pocket of her first aid kit. She didn’t know their names, just the faces, but she wrote down the street names. That was something. Charlotte. Bristol. Eighth Avenue. She tried her best to get them all down. Tally marks covered the page so thickly until she wondered if there was any point in looking for a notebook or something in the next house they stayed, if there was a point in keeping count. She didn’t know their names or their families. But when it came to it, she did find a notebook and each night she did her best to remember the streets they had run down and estimate the number of the dead.

Wells burned as many of the bodies as he could. To stop them from turning and because it was the best any of them could do in the circumstances. They couldn’t stop to bury them all - where would they even do something like that? But they could close the eyes of the dead, pour some petrol over them, and drop a match. He spoke a few words at night, not to any of them, but to those they had left behind. He actually began to say less and less other than his prayers, his mouth kept grimly shut like its only purpose - _his_ only purpose - was to say those farewells. Raven joined him, sometimes. Her fingers moved in a steady pattern over her rosary and they knelt together.

Jasper cut a notch into the handle of his broom - “you seriously need to find a better weapon” Octavia had teased him over his protests that it kept them far enough away from his body thank you very much, “here let me attach a knife to it”. For each zombie he killed, he cut a notch until the end was clean whittled off at one too-vicious slice.

Clarke didn’t know what Raven did, except she did notice that she put her headphones on and tinkered with anything and everything she found. In one house, she fixed the clock and hung it back on the wall. When Clarke lifted her eyebrows at her, Raven just shrugged and straightened it where it hung, and sat down next to Octavia again.

Murphy ate and seemed to fall asleep wherever they stopped for a rest, though his hand remained tight on the handle of his bat even when his eyes were closed.

Lincoln sat and drew. He was a shark at poker, face perfectly smooth, and if he had to be quietly called back to focus on the game once in a while when his eyes fixed unblinkingly on a point on the wall, they didn’t comment on it.

Monty worked on their phones and tried to get it - something - to work.

//

They survived.

//

“I fixed it,” Monty said one morning. He stood, jumped to his feet. “I fixed it!”

“We fixed it.”

“Yes Raven. We fixed it.”

“I’m just correcting you, you see, because you jumped up and said that you fixed it, which, you know,” she leaned back in her chair and twirled the screwdriver in her hand. “That’s incorrect.”

“We fixed it,” he said again and he laughed, running his hands through his hair. “We’re awesome.”

“Now _that_ I can agree with.”

The rest of them watched, confused, as they high fived and continued to chat.

“I thought you were all hardware not software. Not that I’m not grateful for your help,” Monty hurried to add, and Raven shrugged.

“An ill spent youth and a cousin with somewhat questionable morals means that I can do both. Are you impressed or are you impressed?”

“I’m impressed,” Octavia told her, resting her chin on Raven’s shoulder.

“Duh. Of course you are.” She reached back, curled a strand of Octavia’s hair around her finger. “I’m awesome.”

“True.” Octavia grinned, pressed a kiss to her cheek. “And so modest.”

“Modesty is for suckers.”

Clarke cleared her throat, drawing attention to her. “I feel like I should be impressed but,” she lifted her brows in a question. “I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be impressed about.”

“We fixed it,” Monty said again and, when her expression remained blank, he grinned. “Our phones.” He slapped Jasper on the shoulder, shook him lightly until Jasper was grinning right along with him. “Look!”

“Are you kidding?” Clarke tied her hair back, pulled her own phone out of her pocket. “Can you do it for all of us?”

“We already have,” Raven told them. “See this little beauty?” She tapped a little machine that looked an awful lot like a radio and they nodded. “We’ve rigged it so it’s, well. Just think of it as a wifi router. And portable. Can you say hot damn?”

“Hot damn!”

“Thank you, Octavia.”

“No worries, babe.”

“And I can link us all to the same system,” Monty continued over the girls’ conversation. “If you turn on your phone I can set it up.” He collected their phones and got to work.

“Guys, this is amazing. Seriously. Now if we get separated, we actually stand a chance of finding one another.”

“Yep.” Raven grinned. “But I’m still going to be looking for radios from police cars and buses, stuff like that. Walkie talkies break less than phone screens and any kind of communication is a pretty great idea. You know, as like a back up.”

“Absolutely.”

Monty gave himself a quiet little cheer and they turned to him, excited to see what he had for them. The cheers and smiles faded when their phones, in one seemingly endless and loud moment, buzzed their alerts. Alarms, reminders, messages, voicemails.

The growling began outside and Monty blanched.

“I didn’t think of that,” he confessed.

“Monty, we love you,” Jasper sighed and slung his arm around his friends’ shoulder when he stood and scooped up his backpack. “But I really just wanted a nice, relaxing Sunday morning.”

“Can’t always get what you want.”

Jasper grumbled at that. “Apparently I can’t ever get what I want.”

“Do you want a muesli bar?” Octavia offered as they took the stairs down two at a time, jumping the last few. She worked on slinging her bag around her front to reach, jogging easily by their sides.

“No, I don’t want a muesli bar. That’s all we eat now and I’m sick of it. Also, can you please,” he paused to suck in a breath, “stop showing off how fit you are? We get it. You were on the track team.”

“Captain of the track team,” she corrected him. She moved to zip up her bag.

“Wait, wait.” He sighed. “Fine, yes, can I please have a muesli bar?”

Clarke, overhearing, laughed at him and took off ahead when he slowed to unwrap his breakfast. She felt the wrapper drop into the back of her head. “Pick that up,” she told him. “No littering.”

“Oh, sure that makes sense. Looting and maiming and killing is just  fine but god forbid we _litter_.” Jasper did reach down and scoop it up, stumbling into Lincoln’s leg. “Oh. Hey buddy.”

“Stay on your feet,” Lincoln murmured, righting him. Then, “Hold on. Stop.” He wrapped an arm around Jasper’s chest, grabbed Octavia’s shoulder and hauled her back. The whole lot of them froze and Lincoln pointed down an alley, where a curious nose sniffed at the air.

“It’s just a kid,” Jasper said.

Octavia shook her head. The lurch of its step was too familiar to all of them, as was the heavy breathing and the way its eyes seemed to glint very oddly in the dark. “It’s a zombie.”

“There are more down this road.” Lincoln pointed ahead at the figures shambling out from a side street. “We need to go down here. One is better odds than five.” Still, they hesitated, and Clarke was the one to step forward, turn her crowbar over in her hands, and move into the alley.

It was a zombie, she reminded herself.  

“Come on,” she said when it was done. “Let’s go.”

//

They checked their voicemails as they walked down the empty overpass, skirting carefully around empty cars, some still smoking, some pristine and simply empty. Glass crunched underfoot at a careless step and they froze, but continued when nothing came for them.  

“Whoa. You want to keep moving there, Clarke?” Raven urged when the blonde stopped in the street. “Clarke?” She stepped around her, noticing the wide eyes and slack mouth and the way Clarke pulled her phone from her ear to press replay. “Clarke,” she said, more softly. “What is it?”

“It’s my mum.”

She turned the phone on speaker.

“ _Clarke. I don’t know when or if you’ll get this message but if you do, you need to come to Western Australia. You need to come to me, alright? I don’t have long to talk so I can’t explain everything but there is a place here called The Farm. I brought you here once a couple of years ago_.”

“Do you remember that place?” Octavia asked, only to be shushed by the others. Clarke nodded yes at her question.

“ _There are doctors here like me, and the army is here as well. I need you to get here as soon as possible. I’m going to send you the coordinates just in case so you’ll get those in a minute_.”

“Did you get coordinates?” Monty asked, and it was his turn to be shushed.

“ _Bad things are happening, Clarke, so do your best to stay safe an_ -” Clarke’s thumb slipped and Abby’s voice cut off.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “That’s basically everything though. Just, you know. I’ll call you again every couple of days, be good, be safe." She paused. Then added, "I love you.” She pushed the words out with some difficulty and they each looked away, not wanting to intrude on that. Wells narrowed his eyes, though, and she shook her head just a little. Let it go, her eyes seemed to say and he did.

“So, the coordinates?” Monty pressed.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll find them and send them to you.”

“Wait, hold on. Western Australia?” Octavia frowned.

“Yes.”

“Am I the only person seeing the major flaw in that?” They stayed silent and so she continued. “That’s on the other side of the country.”

Clarke nodded. “Yes.”

“The country that is eighty per cent desert and twenty per cent zombie.”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Octavia looked over her friend with new eyes and crossed her arms. “Oh. My god. I mean, my brother told me but I didn’t actually believe him but you are _actually_ insane.”

“We don’t have a better option.”

“I have one.” Raven shrugged easily when she had their attention. “We find a nice little place to live, stock it with a whole lot of food, fend off attacks, and live.” That drew a few nods.

“Hi. I like being alive,” Jasper added, raising his hand to speak. “It’s a really nice feeling.”

“Yeah. If we go travelling cross country, we’re going to get heat stroke and die or we’re going to get eaten and die or eaten and turned and kill the others. We should stay put.”

There was a general murmur of agreement until Clarke cleared her throat. “If we stay put, we will definitely die,” she said. It wasn’t the time to pull punches anymore. She didn’t like the way they flinched - hell, _she_ flinched saying it. They were young and smart and lovely and beautiful people and so alive and to say it, Clarke realised, looking around her at the faces, made it very real. It was true. They were in danger and she had felt it for days but there was something different about saying it out aloud. “It’s just a matter of time before we run into a pack of zombie we can’t escape. We’ll be outnumbered. There are more turning every day,” she said. “And we can try our valiant best but it won’t be enough. We’ll be zombie food before the end of the week if we stay here.”

“Meals on wheels,” Octavia said glumly. “Minus the wheels, of course.” She ducked her head in shame when they glared at her. “Sorry, totally inappropriate.” Her elbow thudded indelicately into Raven’s ribs, Raven the only one who had laughed at her instead of glaring. “My bad.”

Clarke pursed her lips. “Meals on wheels,” she repeated.

“I know, I know,” Octavia said. “Bad joke. I’m sorry.” She stepped out of the way of a poke, courtesy of Raven, and glared.

“No, meals on wheels,” Clarke repeated. “We can’t walk the whole way to WA obviously but what if we got ourselves some wheels?”

“Look, oh boy, wow. I don’t want to be the one to point out all the flaws in your plans, Clarke,” Octavia winced, “but we were in the Jeep for like four hot seconds and they were going to rip it to shreds to get at us. Plus, every zombie in like a ten mile radius will hear it.”

“So we find something sturdier than a Jeep.”

“Like what?”

Raven cleared her throat. “I might have a suggestion.” She pointed behind Clarke, to the remnants of a bus where it hung half off the highway. They avoided looking at the very dead bodies inside it. “Not that one, obviously. I feel like it would be a tiny bit dangerous.” She paused, narrowed her eyes, and almost wandered over with her _I wonder_ face on before Octavia grabbed her wrist and shook her head emphatically no. “Bad idea,” she guessed. Octavia nodded. “Right. Yeah, no, you’re right. Okay. I’m good, I’m great actually, but even I can’t fix that or make it less dangerous to take it. Or less gross once we got it. But seriously Clarke, find me a functional bus, I’ll get it going a little quicker and I’m sure we can put some spikes on it or something that will deter the zoms.”

Clarke slipped her phone into the pocket of her jeans. “Okay. So we find a bus. Monty, did you get the coordinates?”

His phone buzzed and he smiled brightly. “Yep. I can plot a course now or tonight. Whenever.”

“After we get the bus will be fine.” She lifted her eyebrows at the group in a question. “Are we agreed? We’re going to The Farm?”

“Uh.” Murphy wrinkled his nose. “What exactly is it?”

“It’s a medical research facility.”

“Oh. So it’s basically one of those shady pharmaceuticals. It’s probably the reason this whole zombie outbreak happened in the first place,” he spat, crossed his arms. “Great.”

Wells rolled his eyes. “Be quiet, Murphy.”

“I’m just saying, shouldn’t we maybe be trying to stay away from the kind of places that made this whole shit fest happen?”

“My mum is there and the army. It’s probably the safest place in Australia at the moment.”

“Except maybe right in the middle. And how come you get to be in charge, huh? Maybe someone else would like to be leader.”

Clarke ground her teeth. His attitude, devil-may-care, irritating, was getting on her nerves and she did her best to relax the hold she had on her crowbar. As it was, she stepped forward. She could feel Wells at her shoulder, knew he would stop her from doing anything, but she didn’t like the unsettling feeling of knowing she was so close to grabbing his collar and throttling him. “You want to go gallivanting through the desert, be my guest. But you’re going by yourself. And the reason you aren't the leader is because _I don't like you._ ” He must have been able to see how close she was to maiming him because he held his hands up in surrender and stepped back.

“Fine. Whatever. I was just saying.”

Wells stepped in before Clarke could go through with her ideas, which rapidly approached homicide. He smiled. It was a quiet smile, a warning, and Murphy looked away. “And now you’ve said it. So are you with us, or should we find you a bicycle and send you on your way?”

Murphy shoved his hands deep into his jeans pockets and slouched sulkily against the car behind him. “I’m with you,” he muttered.

“Great.” Raven rubbed her hands together eagerly. “So. Now to find a bus. There is a depot farther down this way,” she said. “I can hotwire us a bus but to be honest it would be a lot easier if we could just find the keys.”

“Keys,” Octavia said, “that could potentially be on a zombie bus drivers body.”

“Yep.”

“Cool.” Octavia shrugged. “I’m game.”

“We’ll also need some more food,” Wells contributed.

Lincoln nodded. “And weapons.”

“And petrol.” Clarke hesitated. “That’s a thing, right? You can siphon petrol out of other cars?” Monty shrugged and nodded. “Okay great. If we fill up a couple of gas bottles that should get us down the highways without having to stop at any creepy petrol stations.”

“I second that idea,” Jasper said, raising his hand again. “They freak me out.”

“They freaked you out when people weren’t zombies,” Monty muttered.

“Shut up, okay? They never looked hygienic.”

“You don’t look hygienic.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.

“No, you shut up.”

“Boys,” Octavia said soothingly, reaching out to sling her arms around their shoulders with a friendly smile. “Both of you should shut up.”

* * *

The plan was really very simple.

Step One - find the keys. Step Two - steal a bus. Step Three - make their way to safety.

“Can we go now?”

“Not until I’m sure everyone has it straight.”

“Wow, that is so heteronormative of you, Clarke.” Octavia stepped back under the force of Clarke’s glare and then behind Raven.

“The plan,” Clarke repeated, eyes still narrowed on her friend. “Who is in group one?” She only looked away from Octavia to see that Jasper, Lincoln, and Monty raised their hands.

“Group two?” Octavia and Raven and Wells nodded to her and Clarke let out a nervous breath. “And Group three,” she said, rather needlessly, but raising her hand so everyone knew. After a moment she nudged Murphy. He uncrossed his arms, waved his hand, and crossed his arms again.

“We aren’t in first grade,” he muttered.

“It’s for peace of mind, Murphy.”

“Whatever.”

“Okay. So group one,” Lincoln nodded, “you’re making sure the place is clear. Once you’ve made your way around the building, come back to the the bus and wait. Group two is finding the best bus for us and Murphy and I are looking for the key. If there are any problems,” Clarke lifted her phone, “call me.”

“It’s going to be fine.” Octavia laid her bare sword over her shoulder with a grin. “We’ve got this. Quick and quiet. In and out. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.” She just laughed when Clarke rolled her eyes. “Come on.” Octavia took Raven’s wrist and dragged her along behind her, Wells following them. “See you later,” she called back over her shoulder.

Clarke chewed at the inside of her lower lip, tugging at the skin there worriedly, until they disappeared around the corner and Murphy rolled his eyes at her back. After a moment, he sighed.

“Look, they’ll be fine,” he said, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of soothing anyone.

She just laughed - he flinched, at first, because whatever he'd tried to be nice, but then his eyes flashed to her concerned when he realised it wasn’t a nice laugh, wasn’t a happy laugh, and that her eyes held a sad, fearful kind of doubt. “Are any of us?” she asked.

Murphy sighed heavily and nodded her toward the door of the depot, hands in his pockets. He followed behind her, right at her back. “You’re so optimistic.”

“Like you can talk.”

“What? Oh my god,” Murphy said, feigning surprise. “Look what I’m doing with my mouth, it’s like, it’s like sounds that make sense are coming out of it. I can talk!”

“Shut up, jerk.”

They stepped over the body in the hall and he grinned at her back, careful to make sure she didn’t see. “They’re gonna be fine though,” he said with an easy shrug. “We’ve got our phones, they’re smart or whatever.”

“You talk about everyone so nicely.”

“I mean, Monty rolled his ankle but we can do without him.”

“Don’t go there.”

“And Raven has a headache but what’s she really good for anyway?”

“Murphy,” Clarke said warningly, but there was enough of a tinge of humour there that he just went on.

“Really, everyone should just- whoa, what is it?” he asked, walking into her when she stopped short in the hall. His shoulders tightened at the sight of her face - stricken, pale, eyes wide - and he grabbed her arm. “ _What_?”

She shook her head, lifted her hand to her mouth to shush him. “That man back there,” she whispered, doing her best to make the words clear even when the too fast kick of her heart in her chest urged her to go faster, move faster, talk faster. “What did you see?”

“He’s dead,” Murphy said, as careless a statement as he could allow it to be.

Clarke swallowed. “His throat was cut.”

“So?” And then, “Oh.”

Because she was right. A bite, throat torn out? That would be different. That would be a zombie, a dog, whatever. Something they had encountered before. But a cut? That was human.

“Someone did that to him,” she said.

Clarke pushed past Murphy to kneel at the mans side, placing her hand very carefully on his neck, feeling for any remnant of a pulse. “No pulse.” She ripped at the collar of his shirt and, when it wouldn’t tear, pulled the shirt up and out of his pants.

“Umm. What are you doing?”

“Seeing how cold he is.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know how long he’s been dead, Murphy.” Clarke shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, that’s not really a good way to measure it. I mean, your hand isn’t exactly a thermometer and plus, surface temperature is gone way before core temp.” At her raised eyebrows, Murphy frowned. “What? I can know stuff too, y’know.”

“Well, whatever, there’s another test,” she said, turning the mans neck and feeling at his jaw. Her hands shot back towards her body.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“Rigor mortis hasn’t set in.” She stared down at him for a few moments, chewing on her lip. “It means he’s only been dead a short while,” she said when Murphy said nothing. “Six hours maximum.” When Murphy still didn’t speak, Clarke grabbed her crowbar from where she had placed it by her leg, and stood and turned quickly.

“No, no, no,” the stranger murmured. He was dirty, bearded, and his eyes were on Clarke even his knife scraping lightly down the column of Murphy’s neck. In the pause - utter silence, Clarke didn’t dare move or breathe let alone speak - she could hear the faint sound it made grating against slight stubble and skin. “I wouldn’t, pretty girl.”

“What do you want?” she asked slowly, carefully.

“Well. I would _hate_ for your boyfriend to join Mr John Doe here. Wouldn’t you? _Wouldn’t you_?” he demanded loudly shifting from cool to white hot in an instant, the sharp of his knife hard against Murphy’s neck.

“No!” Clarke yelped.

The change back was just as swift. He smiled at her. “No?”

“Please.”

“So drop the bar, pretty girl, and come over here.” There was no room for negotiation, not when there was no room between the knife and Murphy, so she lowered her crowbar soundless to the ground. He nodded his approval. “You and me are going to a little walk,” he said to her.

He didn’t expect Murphy to slam his head back into his nose.

Clarke ran forward. She wondered exactly when it was that she stopped flinching at sounds and sights like that - the crunch of cartilage was a terrible sound but it gave her a sliver of satisfaction to see the wreckage, to see the way the blood spurted and to hear his yell.

“It’s you and _I_ , shithead,” Murphy spat at him. He turned to Clarke and then.

A slice, very thin, of red opened up on his skin, his face a slow spreading mask of shock and pain. It didn’t seem like anything.

It didn’t look deep.

But he fell to his knees, hands coming up to his neck, and then the amount of red was obscene, chugging its way over his hands and spilling to the floor. Clarke heard as though from a distance a whine, a wail, felt it working its way up and out of her, and she clamped teeth down onto her lip to restrain the sound.

She let it out in the way her knees cracked onto the floor next to him, and the squelch of hands pressing down hard onto red-soaked skin, replacing his with her own.

The red was even more shocking against her paler skin.

“Hey, hey, it’s gonna be fine,” she mumbled, pressing harder. “Hey, Murphy, look at me.” His eyes - wide, terrified - snapped to meet her. “You’re gonna be fi-” She was cut off in a yelp when the man grabbed her by the arm but she shook him off violently, bent over Murphy. “It’s gonna be fine,” she said and she didn’t dare let an ounce of the same terror she felt creep into her voice.

The stranger grabbed her by the hair then, her scalp more sensitive to his tug than her shoulder.

“No, please,” she asked, pleaded, _begged_ him. “Please, please let me stay with him, please.” When she was up on her feet, slipping once and god she could see the red streaked shoe prints she had left in her wake. He shoved her ahead of him. “Please,” she whispered, hoping Murphy couldn’t hear. “He’ll die.”

“Good. Your boyfriend broke my nose.”

“You cut his throat,” she snapped, meeting him glare for glare. Every part of her felt like it was shaking but she didn’t think it was noticeable, otherwise he would have been able to tell that she was one shiver away from collapsing. He just shrugged and pulled her away and down the hall.

“No! Let me go! Murphy!” she screamed through the hand he clamped over her mouth. “John!” The man didn’t even flinch when she bit at his hand, shook her off like she were a particularly annoying mosquito, ignored the way her red slicked hands scrabbled and slid over his jacket trying to grab hold, trying to _hurt_ him.

He dropped her to the ground inside the office at the end of the hall. When she tried to crawl for the door, he stepped on her stomach hard, shoving her to the ground.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, curling protectively around her hip.

“What?”

“We’re _human_. We aren’t zombies - we’re human. What are you doing this?”

He drew the back of his hand over his upper lip and looked down at the red he managed to drag away. Blood still pumped sluggishly out of his nose. Crouching next to her, his smile was a gash of blood and one noticeably crooked tooth in the set. “Do you think I care?” he asked her. “I don’t. Zombies, humans, I don’t give a shit. Zombies take over the place? More room for me. That’s all it means,” he murmured. “And I got things I want.”

“Like what?” She struggled to sit up. Moved back slowly, hand searching for something she could use. Preferably something heavy.

“Food. Water. A place to crash. The usual things,” he said, shrugging. “And now…” he sucked a thoughtful breath in through his teeth, tapped his knife against his thigh. “There’s you, pretty girl.”

“What about me?”

“I’m going to have you,” he told her in a simple way that made her freeze. He was going to have her, and there wasn’t a way out of that.

Unless she made one.

She lifted, heaved, the paper weight into his face. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, and he returned her hit with own of his own - only his was with the heavy base of his knife and against her temple it sent her head snapping to the side, a loud ringing cacophonous in her ears,  and her vision black.

//

The ringing persisted.

She couldn’t feel...anything. She could taste blood in her mouth again - hoped it was her own - and she could feel

fingers? Rummaging over

her, pulling at her pockets, her phone, her belt,

her pants,

and she blinked her eyes open.

Panicked when instead of a ceiling or a face, she only saw red and something black that was _maybe_ a shape. She kicked out as hard as she could.

When she heard laughter, barely heard it over the ringing sound, she guessed it wasn’t hard at all.

“Please,” she mumbled, “please don’t.” She was trying her best to roll away from him but each time she tried, each time she moved, her head shattered in pain. Her words didn’t feel like words in her mouth either. Hell, she wasn’t even sure they left at all - her tongue was heavy enough that she could have been holding all of them there, still and quiet.

“Calm down, pretty girl, or I’ll hit you again.”

“No no no no no.” The pleading came with a rising sense of urgency. “no no no” He was kneeling over her, hands reaching for her, and everything was stained blood red still and she was scared, she was so fucking scared, but she felt too heavy to move “no no no please no” and all she could think was please, please let it be a nightmare, please let her wake up with someone a friend snoring draped heavy across her diaphragm let that be it, let that be the reason she couldn’t breathe, let it be an annoyance and not a scream suffocated in her throat, please.

“Relax,” he laughed again and then he was lowering himself - she slipped her hand out from behind her back, shoulder aching with the strain of being caught under her body - and then he stopped. “What-”

Clarke shifted a little to get a better angle and in a brutal moment, she wished she could see every second of it. It wasn’t enough to feel the knife slipping into his soft belly, she wanted to see it. She deserved that, didn’t she? The scrape of metal against bone shivered the knife in her hand, and it continued up her arm and into her chest where it settled as a memory, a very particular and gruesome memory alongside all the others more faint - settled alongside the crunch of summer apples and grazed knuckles from her first breakup and the particular warm beer tasted like when she was laughing and alongside the frantic rush of similar panics due dates and surprises - and she wondered how many times she would scrub at herself to try to get it out before she could stand to live with it there.

A sob hiccuped in her chest when he exhaled onto her neck in a sick, very final kind of way.

She couldn’t let it out. She couldn’t. The zombies were still out there and still very much sound sensitive and she had to do this herself she had to get out she had to get out from underneath him she had to _get out_ , he was dripping onto her slow and steady around the knife and she had to she had to she

pushed, a frantic desperate awful sick shaking need she needed to get out she couldn’t be there she

Murphy was out there and he had tried to and she -

she _needed_ more than anything in her life ever she needed to not be underneath him and it was hard he was heavy he was a fucking mountain of a man hadn’t he heard that steroids were bad for him? Fuck. He was huge and she needed to be OUT already and she pushed, pulled one leg out from underneath him, kicked his body hard hard harder until she was fully free and she thought it would make breathing easier but it didn’t, it didn’t.

//

“Clarke?”

//

There were hands on her and a knife in her hand and it was luck and quick reflexes that meant she didn’t hurt him.

“Clarke, it’s me.”

//

She wanted it to be Murphy. Of all people, she wanted it to be Murphy because if it wasn’t him, he was still dead in the hallway with a line drawn over his throat the edges turned up in a grotesque kind of smile, and she wanted him to be the one with his hands on her shoulders.

//

“It’s me, Clarke, it’s me. Bellamy. Look at me. There we go.”

“Bell?”

“Hey. Let’s get you out of here. Okay?”

Clarke gripped his wrist hard. “Murphy?”

When he shook his head a solemn no, she sucked in a breath and kept that feeling inside her too along with all the other pains she’d felt and she said to herself, later, I can deal with this later.

She stood. The keys were all numbered, hanging neatly on their hooks by the door and she slid them with a purposefully shake-free hand off their places. Out in the hallway, she stepped over the two bodies and out into the garage.

“Clarke?”

“What the hell happened?”

“Clarke, where is Murphy? _Clarke_.”

The blood dripped a path down her, coating the side of her face, down her neck, uncomfortably underneath her clothes. It dried and caked and cracked on her skin and she felt it every time she moved.

She dropped the keys into Raven’s hands. “Bring the bus around, whichever one you picked,” she said flatly and didn’t wait for Raven’s nod before she was walking back into the building. “Bellamy, there will be a first aid kit in here somewhere. Mine is in the office where…” She paused. “Can you bring me one and then look for anything else useful?”

He didn’t point out the obvious, didn’t tell her that Murphy was dead, that there was nothing she could do now, and for that she was thankful. With her first aid kit in her hand again, she stitched up Murphy’s wound quickly and neatly.

Sutures, she could do. She was good at them.

The best in her class.

Wiping the back of her hand over her cheek to catch tears only streaked more blood on her face. She knew that.

“Can you carry him out please, Bellamy?” she asked. Saw him nod out of the corner of her eye and she moved to let him take her place and watched as he scooped the man - boy, really, he was small and scrawny and his head fell into Bellamy’s shoulder like he was a kid being carried to bed - into his arms.

“Where to?”

“Prop him up against the wall. Thank you.”

“Sure.”

The others came over. Stepped out of the bus and stood around, staring down at Murphy sitting against the wall.

His eyes were shut. Hands loose in his lap.

If it weren’t for the red that stained - fuck - _everything_ , they might have thought he was asleep again. He’d fallen asleep anywhere, everywhere. Whenever he could. Taking watch was for suckers.

“Clarke,” Octavia tried again, and then, “Oh my god. _Bellamy_?”

“Octavia. My god, look at you.” She was in his arms before he could say another word and whatever he said, it was lost as he pressed his lips hard against her forehead. Bellamy was crying. Octavia hugged him tight and they didn’t look like they would part any time soon.

After a moment, Clarke looked up and away. “Is the bus functional, Raven?”

“Yes, but-”

“Good. Get your things. We’re moving out in five.” She turned and made her way to the bus, stepping in and claiming a seat for herself.

//

She looked into a compact mirror and did her best to clean the gash on her forehead and watched out of the corner of her eye when Wells set the fire.

//

Lincoln drove, Monty at his shoulder as navigator.

“Hey Bell,” Raven murmured when he finally pulled away from his little sister and brushed at his eyes.

“Raven! Look at you, kid.”

“Look at _you_ ,” she shot back. “We thought you were in the army.”

“Well.” Bellamy kept his face still, just a smile breaking through. “The world ended,” he reminded her. “Things changed.”

“You went AWOL,” Clarke translated.

Bellamy shrugged. “Yeah.”

Octavia punched his shoulder. “You’re going to be in so much trouble for that,” she laughed. It sounded ludicrous, but they knew it was true. “Why would you do a stupid thing like that?”

They all knew. It was Octavia. “Australia’s gone cannibal, O, I don’t think they’re going to care about one mediocre foot soldier in the big picture. Not until things settle down anyway. Besides, I couldn’t take the chance that by the time that happened, that you,” he looked away for a moment. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m here with you and we’re going to find somewhere safe so when the time comes for my court marshalling, you can be my character witness. Deal?”

“Deal.”

//

“The safe place, Bell. It’s in WA,” Clarke said later, when they watched over the others. “My mum is there with doctors. And the army.” She said that lightly but he heard the warning nonetheless and he nodded.

“I understand.”

“I’ll get Monty to keep looking. He’s searching to see if anyone has found other safe places.”

“It’s fine. WA is fine.”

“Bell,”

“She’ll be safe there,” he said harshly. “If we’re going, we’re going.”

“Okay.” Clarke nodded. “Okay. We’ll get her there,” she said and she held out her hand and he gripped it tight. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said after a while.

“My two best girls are here. Three,” he corrected himself with a little laugh, seeing Raven sleepily frown over at him from where she was sitting, Octavia curled into her. “Nowhere I’d rather be.”

//

Later, much later, when there was only highway ahead and behind them and the moon lit up scraps of trees and not much else, Clarke sat in the far back of the bus and listened to the voicemail her mother had left once more.

“ _Bad things are happening, Clarke, so do your best to stay safe and I know you. I know you like to think that I don’t because I’m not your age and all that but I do know you. You’re going to try and keep everyone safe. You’re going to try and look after all your friends and I hate to be the bad guy but I’m going to be because Clarke,”_ she listened to the stern ring of certainty in her mother’s voice, _“I need you here. I need to know that you’re safe. So when it comes down to it - and it will come down to it and I wish it didn’t, baby, oh sweetie, I wish it didn’t - when it comes down to it, you leave them behind. You leave your friends behind and you run. Look after yourself first. I want you to come home safe. Come_ home _, Clarke._ ”


	2. Part Two

In the story books, heroes are good.

In the story books, heroes fight and they fight and they fight. (She’s tired.)

In the story books, they have a plan.

In the story books, those ones Clarke had read with her father (he would scoop her off the couch like it was the easiest thing in the world, he laughed he laughed so much, and he read her to bed every evening and she wondered how sad he would be to know that she hadn’t touched one of his books in years and now she had left them all behind every one of them), very few of them had mentioned the wide stretches of time they had to sit and wait and think, and those that had...none had prepared her for what it was like to sit and wait and think of dying.

That was the end result, wasn’t it? That’s what they were hurtling towards, slower before and now so so fast.

And it was everywhere. Do this or die. See those people, run or die, they’re everywhere and they’re dead dead dead. Figure out how to do that or die. Figure it out, or die. No mistakes, or someone dies.

Well, she had learned that one.

Not a hero, then. Arrogant enough definitely, and she definitely had the hair for it, but she wasn’t good and she didn’t want to fight and she really didn’t have a plan and it was all she could think about, death, that and dying and the dead and what it might feel like when it happened and whether she deserved it because it had well and truly drenched her now.

Heroes don’t get scared. (She’s so scared.)

She clenched her jaw shut tight and ran her tongue over her teeth hard. Count them. Count them again. Calm down.

There were seven immediate problems to deal with-and god, so many building up after those. So many thoughts buzzing around inside her head she felt like a fluorescent light humming and shuddering in place right on the verge of shattering into smithereens and she absolutely did not have the capacity to hold all of this inside, she was letting them slip out one by one and she was ignoring it, and each one, each and every one, she just had to hope that one, or that next one, wouldn’t be the one she desperately needed to pay attention to. (Is this the one that will get us all killed?)

Seven problems.

//

Maybe this was how heroes dealt with it all.

//

One.

Raven had been playing the same damn song on repeat for what seemed like forever and, other than Octavia, everyone was going out of the damn minds. That had to be fixed because the last thing Clarke needed was everyone on edge - she needed them calm and okay and not fighting.

“Raven, change the song.”

“Nah.”

“Raven, please change the song.”

She didn’t even bother to acknowledge Jasper the second time. Just continued to hum along and watch Octavia dance in the aisle. She bobbed her foot in time to the beat and, when Jasper sighed a long suffering sigh for the fourth time, pinned him with a look so vile, so terrifying, he retreated as far as he was able into his seat.

The song started again.

Lincoln was next.

“Normally I would agree with you,” he said in his quiet burr, “but it’s been nearly an hour. Just...change the song?”

Her eyes cut over to him and she grinned. Furrowed brow and tense shoulders shouldn’t make Raven so pleased but Lincoln was probably the most mellow dude she knew - excluding maybe Wells - and it was probably defined as a character flaw but Raven really, really enjoyed riling people up.

She shook her head no and ‘accidentally’ turned the volume up.

Octavia rolled her eyes over at her best friend - who just smiled at her, clearly unrepentant - and moved to sit with Lincoln. She draped her arms over his shoulders and sang into his ear until he laughed and sang with her.

Raven sat up fully, at that. She stilled and chewed on her lip, eyes fixed on the points where the two were touching. Her finger hovered over the button to change the song but then, a thought. She returned to her easy grin and shrugged. “Looks like you’re not complaining now, big dude. Anyone else?”

“Everyone else has complained,” Bellamy said through gritted teeth and Raven just laughed - until he threw a balled up scrap of paper that hit her on the shoulder. Then she narrowed her eyes at him and mimed doing something violent, disgusting, and likely illegal. “Just turn the damn song off.”

“Hey. Your sister loves this song. Show some respect.”

“Yeah! I love this song!”

“See?”

“Alright, alright.”

“I love it!” Octavia said, turning and stopping her singing just long enough to glare at him. Bellamy raised his hands in surrender.

“I said alright already, geez.”

“Good. Glad we got that sorted out. Anyone else?” Raven challenged. “What about you nerds?” Jasper and Monty averted their eyes. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” Cockiness faltered the moment Clarke dragged her eyes from the view out her window and spoke up.

“Change the song, Raven,” she said. Her clipped words tore right through the strain between them. They were all of them straining to hear her, straining their peripheries to keep an eye on her without bombarding her with the weight of seven pairs of cautious, curious eyes, and so so many questions. She could see them swallowing them down.

(Did Murphy say anything? Were you with him when he died? Was he scared? Did it hurt? What is it like to kill someone? What is it like to kill someone real? Did he deserve it? Did you think you were going to die? Are you alright?)

(No. No. He looked so scared. I think so. I don’t know, I can’t tell you. I don’t know, I can’t say, I don’t want to say, I think it might have felt good. Yes, maybe, I don’t know. Yes. No.)

“Yeah. Sure, Clarke. No worries.”

Clarke nodded her thanks and turned back to the window, the treeline, the road, the blurring landscape, the moon. It really was beautiful. She leaned her head on the window and pressed harder into the glass until it shook her vision ragged.

It made her teeth chatter, too, and partially covered the noise of soft-spoken words being traded up the front of the bus. Not all of them, though, and the rest she tried to block out by sinking into that single focus mind that worked from objective to solution. The background, though, it chittered. And chattered and worked and wore away at her until it slipped in anyway. Punctuated, em dash an unsubtle stare, comma a hitch in breath, and the dot dot dot of a nervous knee.

“How come - - change it for her?” Jasper.

Answer: two elbows to the ribs.

“-bruised. That is so unnecessary.”

“You’re unnecessary.”

A hurt gasp. Dramatic. Jasper again.

“Shut up, date.”

“Fine. - because I want to, not - - -  kill a guy - your bare hands demeanour got - me”

Bellamy shot to standing but it was Wells - Wells, now, wasn’t that interesting Clarke thought, interest curling around her just enough to tilt her head, have a little look, because they couldn’t really stand each other, didn’t like each other, but some things change maybe, a lot of things change maybe - Wells put a hand on his elbow and shook his head no and Bellamy sat. His jaw worked angrily. He jerked his chin at Monty. “You talk to him,” he growled, and he folded his arms tight over his chest and Wells looked sad and tired and slumped back against the wall of the bus but he gave Bellamy a short nod and Clarke looked away before those soft, solemn eyes met hers.

Monty. Clever, clever Monty.

He would say something simple and direct, knew that was the way to get to Jasper. Clever Jasper. Thoughtless Jasper.

“Jasper,” he began. “Just go with it okay. Clarke-”

“Lincoln,” she interrupted, “how far are we from the Gold Coast?”

“Getting out of the city took longer than I thought.”

Cars had been piled up in the streets. A fallen tree. An escape wasn’t as quick or as grand when you had to stop and start and stop again. Move back down the same street, past a burning body no one looked at because the way was blocked and you had to try again.

“I didn’t ask how long it took, I asked how long until we get there.”

“We’re about thirty minutes out.” Lincoln handed the map to Octavia, who passed it to Raven with a smile, to Monty, to Bellamy, who walked it to Clarke and dropped down into the seat opposite.

Two.

“We need food and water.”

Three.

“Petrol too.”

Four.

“We need to do something with this bus. It’s not comfortable and we’re going to be stuck in it for a while.” A few nods. “We can do without some of these seats, put actually useful stuff in the excess space.”

She held the map out for Bellamy to take, who hesitated, eyes so soft and it was so wrong. She didn’t want soft. Finally, he did take it and walk the map back to the front and he cast another worried look over his shoulder before he seated himself next to Wells.

Five.

Both of them cast worried looks her way - worried, annoying glances. She didn’t want or need help.

Six.

What she wanted and needed was a fresh change of clothes. She dreamed of a shower, hot pulses of water cutting through what felt like an inch of grime and the, the red. But that wasn’t going to be forthcoming any time soon, she knew, so just a little time to clean herself up. That was what she wanted.

Blood - she could say the word, she could think it, she was practically a doctor for gods sake - was uncomfortable. It felt like glue. Or paint. It was a paint she had let dry on her hands and, shit, everywhere else. Cracking and flaking still every time she shifted, like a second skin she was shedding (transformation, this was the transformation, every hero had one or was it a sacrifice) and she dropped that thought when her stomach threatened to rebel (this wasn’t her, this wasn’t her skin, this wasn’t her she wasn’t changing that much it was just blood and it didn’t belong to her it was not her sacrifice).

Deep breath, Clarke.

Try to ignore the pain that ran across her temple, that sat malignant and throbbing, throbbing, throbbing behind her eyes.

//

Seven.

Something to stop the pain.

//

“Half an hour?” she checked with Lincoln.

“Yep.”

“Okay.” Clarke yawned. Hated intensely the way her jaw cracked. Her nose hurt too. “Wake me up when we get there.”

Wells frowned. “You could have a concussion, Clarke, I’m not sure you should be sleeping.”

“Look,” she began and stopped just as quickly. Gentled her tone. “I’ll be fine. Just...ask me who the Prime Minister is - was - when I wake up and if I answer wrong, ask me something else because honestly we’ve had like, twelve in the past year.”

“That’s fair. I’ll ask you how old you are,” Octavia said, and, “It’s all good,” she said, and ducked over to where Wells was and she dragged him to the front of the bus. “Leave her be,” she said, cajoled, teased, and at the very centre of the thing, ordered. They obeyed.

Thank you, Clarke mouthed when Octavia looked over, eyes dark and gentle like her brothers but infinitely more understanding and oh, what a bad time for understanding, oh what a bad time for kindness.

(Is there ever a bad time for kindness?)

(Yes.)

She blinked. She was crying and as well as she could, Clarke twisted her face into an expression she hoped said let it go, leave me be, I’m fine, it’s okay, just don’t.

Octavia smiled again. Blew her a kiss and turned away, tugged on Raven’s hand to get her up to dance, and Wells, and Jasper, and when they were dancing inelegantly and awkwardly in the cramped aisle and trying out the lightness of laughter again and singing, no one was looking at Clarke and it was easy to close her eyes and pretend that she was sleeping.

//

“Twenty-two.”

“Fuck you’re old.”

“Shut up, O. Hey. Who is Prime Minister? Was. Whatever.”

“I don’t know. Tony Abbott?”

“No, he was booted out wasn’t he?”

“Oh. Um.”

“Some old white dude anyway.”

“Yeah. That sounds about right.”

* * *

 

They parked their bus on the highway outside of the town - it was so strange. They had climbed up onto the roof and sat, legs tucked underneath them instead of hanging off the side. Just in case.

Buildings shot up ahead of them, the surf rolled in just beyond that, and beyond that a seemingly endless stretch of sea.

And everything quiet, and everything dim.

Except for them.

“Look, who is the genius here?” Raven said clumsily around the flashlight in her mouth. She used her hands to jab at the map emphatically and back at herself, thumb jabbing into the centre of her torso. “Me. I am. And I’m telling you, we go down the Esplanade, pull into any of the hotels, steal a whole bunch of shit, and make a break for it. You know those places will have plenty of shit. Food, water, alcohol - blankets. You know the ones I’m talking about. Those soft ones that make you feel like you’ve wrapped yourself in one of god’s own heavenly clouds. And those enormous fluffy pillows you just want to bury yourself in like. Fuck. Me. That is the head of luxury right there.”

“I think you mean lap of luxury.”

“No, why would you put your lap on a pillow? That doesn’t make any sense. Think about it for a second, Jimmy Neutron.” Raven paused. “Kinky shit aside.”

“Nice. Good one.”

“Thanks, babe.” Raven leaned back into Octavia for a moment. “So, we’re agreed. The Esplanade, right?”

“Oh, no. Your nickname was good but your idea is shit.” Octavia scooted over and pointed down at another road. “What’s the one?”

“The Boulevard,” Raven read for her.

“Nice. What a weird fucking word. Boulevard. Is that French?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Cool. Anyway, if we go down here, we can hit this place - see that little food symbol, that cool - then this lovely alcohol joint, then three hotels. More diversity in a smaller area.” Raven’s jaw clenched shut around the compliment she wanted to give - she wanted to be right dammit - but she jerked a nod and sighed. Octavia beamed. “Say it,” she prompted.

“No.”

“Say it, you prideful monster,” Octavia cooed, poking Raven in the shoulder. Raven sighed again.

“You were right,” Raven grumbled, at the happy laugh she got for that made forfeiting her pride worth every second.

Until Clarke spoke up. “You’re both wrong. We’re going to come in from here,” she pointed. “There’s an autoshop and we can work on the bus there. We can hit the hotels afterwards.”

“I don’t mean to point out the giant flaw in this plan and ruin everyone’s night but,” Bellamy said and Clarke rolled her eyes. Like sister, like brother. He braced his arms against his knees and frowned thoughtfully, ran a hand through his hair. Close cropped, army hair. Clarke felt a lurch in her gut - what was he going to do when they got there? Be arrested? Charged with treason or whatever the hell you were charged with when you abandoned the army? She pushed the thought away. One step at a time. Getting there was first. Anything after that would have to wait. “How are we supposed to do any of this without zombies hearing us? The bus is slow. It’s not like we can outrun them.”

Raven’s hand shot up into the air. “I have an idea.”

“One that doesn’t involve explosives?”

“What’s your problem, man? Explosives are fun.”

“Oh let’s see.” He started to check the reasons off on his fingers. “They’re dangerous. They draw too much attention. They’re dangerous. They use up materials we don’t have. They’re dangerous. And you don’t look good without your eyebrows.”

“First of all, I always look good. Second of all, those other reasons are all exactly why bombs are precisely the right move here. Bombs go boom, zombies freak, zombies go to where all the heat and the noise is coming from.”

“What do you need for that?”

“Clarke,” Bellamy frowned. “No. Don’t encourage her!”

Raven blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yes. What do you need?”

“Clarke, you can’t seriously be considering-”

“I don’t need much.”

“Well, that’s hot.” Octavia shrugged when they turned to her. “Smart is attractive. I’m a human being, people.”

“You’re also eighteen, okay, so you’re not nearly old enough to find things hot.” Bellamy cleared his throat. “Turn around. Look away.”

“Don’t do your old overprotective bullshit routine, Bell.”

“O-”

“I’m eighteen. Almost nineteen. I can do what I want.”

“Not around me you can’t.”

“Bellamy, you know what you can do? You can take your-”

“Guys. Hello. Can you two take your fight like, somewhere else?” Raven glared at them. Shooed them with a small flick of her hand, careless. “I’m actually trying to talk to Clarke about making a big as fuck bomb and you’re interrupting.”

Octavia blinked. Sighed. “That’s so hot.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Come on.” Bellamy groaned and dropped down the side of the bus, stepping inside. Octavia shrugged, waved, and followed him.

“She’s always up for a fight,” Raven commented to Clarke. “It’s, like, the best thing about her. There’s also the fact that she’s super smart and, like, generally the best person in the world but the whole fight me at the world attitude, that’s great too.”

“Raven.”

“Yeah?”

“The bomb.”

“Right. The bomb.”

//

“I think that went very well.”

Raven said it, a little loud, when the ringing of the explosion had faded somewhat from their ears. Smoke billowed high into the air and she fingered the lighter in her pocket with a sense of fond accomplishment. “Please,” she drawled, “don’t all rush in with the compliments, I can’t handle it,” she said to the quiet bus.

Octavia cleared her throat. “Raven, goddess, champion, that was amazing. Really stupendous.”

“Oh yeah, really great.”

“Very impressive.”

“I mean, it was okay I guess - okay, okay, I’m sorry, it was great!” Monty laughed, hiding behind his hands when she came for him. “I’m sorry!” he laughed again and she draped herself over the back of the chair in front of him and grabbed him, ground her knuckles very lightly into his head, just to make him squirm. “Mercy, mercy.”

“No need to thank me,” she said but she let him go and sat back.

“What?” Then, “Goddammit Raven, you’re Spanish. Not French.”

“I’m multi-lingual, so what? Don’t put me in a box.”

“Jerk.”

“Buttface.”

“Child.”

“Pyro.”

“Eh, that’s fair.” She twisted and dropped down more fully, more comfortably, onto the seat. Then she looked out the window up at the behemoth of grey that curled its way high into the sky. Every now and again a loud sound would crack through the air - heat fracturing some part of the car Raven had tossed the bomb into, perhaps - and it was a strangely beautiful sight. There was the weightlessness of a clear blue morning, light and hot, and the only mark that marred it the only sound the only sight, theirs.

Them, a quiet rumble pulling into the autoshop - Raven and Monty and Lincoln stepped inside to work, the others waited outside.

Them, knuckles red and sore.

Them, whole bodies sore, really.

Overturned cartons dug plastic grooves into their butts but their feet thanked them. Most of them hadn’t rested on the bus - Octavia in particular had darted from person and she sagged with exhaustion onto the first box, tugging Clarke down to sit with her.

“What a day,” she sighed, and her watch blinked 7:05 AM and she sighed again. “What a day.” She turned her face toward Clarke and the small nod she got in reply was enough. Clarke didn’t shift or fright when Octavia laid her forehead on her shoulder so they stayed like that until Raven came out of the workshop.

The smoke had been cast in stripes across the sky by the wind - Octavia could check her watch but her eyes felt leaden and hey, the sun was a little higher so they must have been inside for a while. She leaned heavier into Clarke’s side and turned a warm smile Raven’s way.

“What’s up, babe? What’s the verdict?”

“Hey.” She dropped into a crouch, balanced herself with a hand on Octavia’s knee. “Okay, so there is a ton of scrap metal here and we can definitely make this a really cool, terrifying bus. Like, ride shiny and chrome on the road to Valhalla cool and terrifying. I’m talking spikes, definitely some protective bars on the windows and door. Probably some tough as fuck roo bar on the front. We can cut out a bunch of the seats, put in a few beds, maybe room for a little kitchen. They have this tough mesh I was thinking we could use for a cage,” she listed her ideas and they nodded along.

“How long?”

Raven scratched her neck. The move left streaks on her skin. She raised her eyebrows at the boys who shrugged back at her.

“A day,” she told Clarke. “A little bit more. At least.”

“No. No, that’s too long.” She shifted forward, moving Octavia away from her as gently as she could.

“There’s no point in up and leaving if we run into trouble and have no defences. I am putting bars on the windows, I am putting a cage in the back, I am putting room for all the supplies we are gonna get, and you are going to let me do this. You’ve had a shit time of it and-”

“Raven, come on mate,” Wells said, trying to gentle both of them, seeing the way Clarke stood all slow and purposeful and intent. “Just…”

Raven ignored him.

“We have all had the worst day of our lives, Clarke.” Raven stood as well. “We all lost that jerk. I get it - I get it. But I don’t want to lose anyone else so I am telling you, this is what it’s going to take. Got it?”

Clarke wavered. It felt like she was standing right on the edge of something and a feeling swayed dragged her forward and then back, unsettling, and she wasn’t quite sure what it was but each weighted moment filled her with another reply and tipped her forward, forward, into something sharp and caustic and hot and

you have no idea how I feel

tell me what to do then, take my place then

this isn’t my worst day

She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to say anything, she wanted to fight it would feel so incredible to step forward and...she didn’t want to hurt Raven, but be hurt?. Turn, slam her fists into the wall until overripe skin burst? She could feel the insistent appeal of that.

Instead, she took a step backwards and swallowed hard and ignored all the ways she ached.

“Okay,” she said.

“Really?”

“A day.” Clarke nodded. “We can do that. What do you need?”

Raven frowned a little. “Just time. We have everything we need here.”

“Then you’ll get it. And while you guys work on that, we’ll collect supplies. We go in teams,” she said, turning to the others. “We have to be quiet - we are still vulnerable. Groups of three. No one is out for more than an hour so keep an eye on the time - if you’re late, we’re going to assume you’re dead. Don’t go further out than it’ll take you to get back. Wells, Bellamy, you’re with me.”

The boys exchanged a glance.

“Clarke,” Bellamy started.

“Maybe you should do on the second run,” Wells finished.

It was easier, after swallowing it down once, to do it again and again and so she swallowed and she sat and nodded and she let them ready themselves to leave and she swallowed once more.

“Have a look for medical supplies okay,” was all she said and she took her first aid bag and her crowbar with her when she left to wash her hands in the sink.

“You’re staying here as well,” Bellamy told Octavia. She began to argue but there are few things in the world more stern and unrelenting as a rightfully protective older brother and she quickly realised she wasn’t about to change his mind. “Just, take the hour to rest. Have a nap if you can. You’ll feel better and do better. We can’t afford to be too run down, O. So don’t fight me on this, okay?”

“Fine. So long as you promise I get to go on the next one. And that you’ll come back.”

“Deal.” They hugged quickly. His quiet laugh crinkled the corners of his eyes when he pulled back. “Don’t look so miserable, O. You’ll get your turn.” He hoisted an empty bag onto his back. Jasper and Wells loaded up the same, Clarke had returned to terse and tense to give them instructions on what she specifically wanted if they could find it - and after a small hesitation, Bellamy pulled a chain up and over his head and pressed it into Octavia’s hand. “Here.”

“Your tags? No, Bell, I can’t.”

“You can and you will. Look after them for me.”

“Bell,” she said, and they were warm against her skin. She felt such an immediate rush of closeness to him that she just nodded. “Thanks. And hey,” she added when he turned to go, “you get this.” She used his leg as a balancing post, lifting her foot to untie her anklet. He held out his wrist and she tied it on, loose and then tightening it until she was sure it wouldn’t slip off his hand.

“You made this,” he said, remembering sitting with her and patiently teaching her to braid the small colourful threads and soothing her when her temper got the better of her and she stormed away time and again. And she had always come back, never gave up. “Thank you.” He tightened it a little more - there was no way he was going to lose it, and he pulled Octavia in close for another hug. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he promised, and when he was gone she wrapped her hands tight around her sword and waited.

//

Clarke watched her pace and pace until the pacing made her dizzy and then she stood. “Octavia,” she said, snagging her sleeve.

“What?”

He’s going to be okay. He’s going to come back safe. They all are. She couldn’t say it though.

Octavia nodded. Gave Clarke a grim not-smile and freed herself, instead gripping Clarke’s hand tight. “Yeah. Thanks.”

//

It was night and the auto shop was locked up tight and one of them - Jasper, Clarke was fairly sure - had brought back a bottle of vodka in his pack.

Raven pressed a cup into Clarke's hand and she sat on the box next to her. She took a few unhurried sips of her own drink before she spoke. "So, I was kind of a bitch earlier or whatever," she started.

"Which time?"

"Ouch." Then, "That's fair. But since I'm right about us needing time with the bus and all that, I'm going to say just back on the bus. With not changing the music and being kind of a jerk."

“Oh.” Clarke frowned. “It’s fine.”

“Dude.”

“Really.”

“It’s O’s favourite song and-”

“Raven, honest, it’s fine.”

“Clarke.” Raven looked into Clarke’s cup - still full - and she scratched at her nose for a moment. “Look, I’m gonna be honest with you. You say you’re fine and that’s great, that’s cool with me, I don’t really care. I have a really small group of people who I consider family and they’re the only people I actually give a damn about and Octavia is right at the top of that list, okay? And she’s going to want some touchy feely stuff to make sure we’re all good. She’s been jabbing me for ever and this glorious skin doesn’t deserve to be bruised, okay, so I’m not going back to her without something. So just, tell me that we’re okay and that you’re okay.”

“Raven, we are. You didn’t upset me. I just have a headache.”

There was a moment, a beat after she said it, when Clarke knew that Raven knew. That she was lying. And then Raven nodded, lips pressed together in a sharp line, and she cracked the knuckles of her left hand against her knee.

“Well,” she said and she looked away as she did, “that’s total bullshit.”

“Excuse me?” Sharp words. Sharp words kept people at a distance, Clarke knew.

Usually.

“Murphy is dead.” Raven said it and it hit Clarke with blunt force. “We all know it happened right in front of you, it’s not hard to figure out you were probably next.” Clarke shifted just a little. Her knife pinpricked into her soft belly, still there, her boot knocked into her crowbar, still there. Raven swilled her drink. Downed the last of it. “Plus, Bellamy told me how he found you.”

“He what?”

“The guy on top of you, I know you stabbed him. I know he - hey, no, don’t bail on me,” she demanded when Clarked tensed and looked around for Bellamy. “Clarke, hey. I’m not an idiot. I can guess what that dude wanted to do to you and I know what you had to do so look at me. Look at me.” Raven’s eyes were dark. “You did the right thing,” she said with a solidness to it, a certainty that Raven had with everything she said and did. “You did the right thing. You’re not okay, Clarke, but you did the right thing.”

“You’re wrong. I’m fine.”

Clarke stood, made her way to the corner where they had dumped their collected bedding. She dragged a pile to the side. When Raven grabbed her arm, she twisted out of it and she shoved her hard up against the wall, fingers digging what would certainly become bruises into her arms.

Raven rolled her shoulders out when Clarke tore her hands away in the next second, and she shook her head when Clarke started on an apology.

“Nah. That was a bit of a jerk move on my end. I thought it would get a reaction from you.”

“It did.” Clarke wiped her hands on her jeans. “I’m really sorry, Raven.”

“Thanks.” Clarke looked down and away and Raven frowned. “Hey. It’s okay. None of us are okay, yknow. It’s a,” she rolled her eyes hard, “apocalypse? Or whatever. Fuck, that’s still so weird to say.”

“Yep.”

“So, you don’t have to talk about any of it, deal with your shit however you want, just keep in mind that there are more people involved in this than just you. We all lost a friend.” She grimaced. Murphy had never exactly been a friend but he had been something, an ally at least, someone who should never have died definitely, and they weren’t sure yet whether it was wrong to remember him as a friend or whether bumping him up to the status made up a little for the fact that he was gone. Or whether it made them feel better or worse. “I’m nineteen,” Raven said quietly. “I never thought… And Octavia? She’s eighteen. She doesn’t want to think about her dead friend. She wants to have fun. I get that this is shit but you have to figure out a way to just be okay, like all the rest of us.”

“I am doing the best I can.”

“Then you need to do better.”

Clarke followed Raven’s line of sight over to their friends and despite the small bubbles of laughter, they looked heavy.

She couldn’t breathe. It hadn’t even been a full day and she needed to be okay again, and she was so angry and it was the worst because there wasn’t even anything to be angry at. Murphy was dead, the guy was dead, and she couldn’t be angry at Raven because she was right dammit. Clarke did need to function and right now, she wasn’t. Not well enough.

She wondered if they all felt it.

She couldn’t breathe.

They, at least, were smiling. They were trying and much better than she was. They were drinking and the air was clean and her stomach was full for the first time that week and she had hoped that some semblance of comfort, familiarity, would make this all feel better but the difference just felt more stark and she wondered if it was the same for them or if, after seeing what she had, after what she had done, if she just couldn’t see the gentle anymore.

She saw the scrapes on hands and the way they kept their weapons in their laps. The full cups and the laughter brimming behind their teeth and Jasper’s terrible joke and Octavia drumming...that was all there but Clarke was having trouble focusing on it. Their bus was a monstrosity of beaten metal, not an armoured salvation, and definitely not just a bus anymore. Just a normal bus she would have stepped on and off hundreds of times before.

“We’ll need spare tires,” she said to Raven.

“Already packed some.”

“Nice. Good work.”

She couldn’t breathe. Her hands didn’t feel like her own; her hands felt like they were the wrong way round and nothing was making sense and everything was terribly wrong but

she was still herself. And she had a job to do and it was shit that they had lost Murphy but here they were - alive. She was still herself. That had to mean something.

She was unspeakably glad that Raven had sought her out alone, that it was only one person that saw the effort it took to loosen the grip on her weapon, to stop lifting her hand to run sore fingers along the sore cut across her forehead, to smile. When she turned to Raven, touched her shoulder, she was relieved too to find that her friend allowed it.

“I can do that,” she said, and she did her best to make it sound like a promise.

//

It was significantly darker when the others crept into their beds. They toed their shoes off and exchanged quiet good nights and the moonlight made everything liquid and silver and cold and very, very beautiful, in an eerie kind of way.

Raven knelt with Wells for some time, fingers moving over her rosary.

Octavia left her, a squeeze to her shoulder, to drag her bed closer to where Clarke had dragged hers. She flopped down, exhaled mightily, and wriggled her hand out to where she found Clarke’s and gave it a squeeze.

“Hey.”

Clarke opened her eyes. “Hey.”

“You look like an angel,” Octavia told her very seriously and she reached up to touch the very end of the bruise and the cut across Clarke’s forehead. When Clarke’s eyelashes fluttered at the pain, she apologised softly and took her hand away. “Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked.

“No. Not really.”

Octavia nodded. “Okay.” She shuffled a little closer, grabbed the edge of the cardboard beneath her blankets to scoot it over until it overlapped with Clarke’s. “Do you...would you mind if...can I talk about something?” she asked, voice falling a little more quiet at each attempt.

Clarke let her eyes adjust more to the dark so she could look over the details of Octavia’s face. Everything was shadowed but she could make out downcast eyes and a lip caught between teeth and nerves that jittered out through her fingers holding slightly too tight onto Clarke’s. This time, it was her turn to move closer. So she did.

“Yeah. If you want.”

“Okay.” She didn’t speak for a long time and her nose twitched thoughtfully from side to side and Clarke thought that she looked impossibly young and hoped, desperately, that what Octavia was going to tell her was something that she could help her with, something good maybe, or something that at the very least meant that Clarke could wrap her up in a hug and tell her it was going to be okay and that she could actually mean it. “I graduated a few months ago,” Octavia said eventually. “We had all those fun, kinda stupid ceremonies. And, like, the parties too like the formal and the big after party and all that. Raven and I went together.”

“Did you wear a dress?”

“Yeah. Raven looked amazing,” she told her. In the dark, she spoke quietly because they all knew how easily the quiet could be shattered but Clarke didn’t need light or loud to know by now how Octavia’s face changed, lightened, when she mentioned Raven. It lit up in a singularly complete fashion and she imagined that now. “So good, like, so good. I looked smoking hot too, of course.”

“Of course.”

They fell silent again. Clarke nudged Octavia to sit up and she draped her blanket around her back and shoulders and tucked it around her body strategically so the cold wouldn’t seep in - though it did manage to find a few loose folds and settle there but Clarke ignored that and pressed her legs against the warmth of Octavia’s back and shuffled a little closer still. She reached up to Octavia’s hair, checked first and then, when she nodded, pulled her fingers through brown hair carefully, brushing it loose. Then she began to braid it as carefully as she could.

Three braids in, Octavia began to talk again.

“There was alcohol and stuff at the after party. It was really great fun, loud music - good music - and we danced a lot and everyone likes me so it was just this really great time with all my friends.”

“Naturally.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, you’re very likeable.”

“Aww, thanks babe.” Octavia leaned a little heavier back on Clarke, just for a moment, before continuing her story. “Anyway, so I was in this really cute outfit. We got changed after the dance-” Clarke nodded, she remembered the formal dress the corsage the hair and changing rapidly into something rather less modest. “It was this skirt shirt jacket combo- anyway, that’s not really the point.” She licked her lips. “The point is, I got pretty trashed at the party and I guess this guy must have thought I was just his type because he waited until Raven left to get a drink and then he took me up to a room,” she said, forcibly casual.

Clarke’s hands stayed gentle in her hair.

“It’s not a big deal, nothing happened. I don’t remember anything anyway, which, y’know that’s pretty lucky probably. Raven told me she got to us before anything happened and the rugby guys made it pretty fucking clear that he wasn’t welcome and that he had to leave.” She lifted her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I don’t remember,” she said again, and she frowned. Pulled forward a little against the tug of the braid to tighten her hair, to let Clarke finish the braid she was on. “But, sometimes, I don’t know. Sometimes when I’m talking to a guy, it’s this weird...I’ll think I do? Like, it can be this totally innocent one word or maybe it’s their voice or I don’t even know, I just, I’ll feel like I can’t breathe, y’know?”

Someone - Jasper, probably - snored. Octavia looked over in his direction.

“Sometimes I can’t sleep,” she said, very quietly.

Clarke scooped Octavia’s hair up off her neck and did it up for her, pulling the tie off her wrist. She spent a few moments adjusting the braids so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable for Octavia and then let her hands fall. They rested loose in her lap, knuckles grazing lighting against Octavia’s breath when she breathed.

“I’m sorry that happened.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Nah. Not really. I mean, I’m okay, you know? Nothing happened - and that doesn’t mean that it’s not terrifying sometimes because something totally did happen, just because it didn’t, he didn’t,” Clarke nodded and Octavia moved on, “doesn’t mean that the intent wasn’t there and that it totally could have and I just,”

Clarke reached forward. Squeezed her hand.

“Anyway. I have Raven, and you, and my brother and friends and like, I don’t know, it’s still super shit but I’m a fucking boss and when I need to take a break I know you guys all have my back.”

“That’s true.” Clarke dropped her chin down onto the Octavia’s shoulder. A fierce wave of protectiveness washed over her and she lifted her head, pressed her forehead against her shoulder instead, wrapped her arms loosely around her friend. “That’s so true,” she reassured her.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And, you know, like, it’s okay if you’re not okay right now. You can dogpile with me and Raven if you want, we’ll keep you safe.” Quicker than Clarke could answer, Octavia continued. “And like, if you don’t want to be touched that’s also totally cool, you can sleep near us instead. I give off heat like a fucking furnace and Raven snores a little so, y’know, you’ll know we’re nearby.”

Clarke placed a hand over Octavia’s mouth, grimaced when the girl licked it. “Ew. Dude, you should rinse your mouth out that’s so gross.” She wiped her hand on the knee of her jeans. “Gross. But yes, I will sleep with you. Please don’t lick me again.”

“That’s not what girls usually say in these kinds of situations but…”

“Octavia,” Bellamy groaned. “Please. Let me at least pretend that you’re still ten years old?”

Clarke stifled her laugh in Octavia’s shoulder and they sunk into their blankets and adjusted and squirmed until they were as comfortable as possible and then they sunk deeper still and fell asleep.

//

Raven dropped next to Octavia some time later, rousing them a little.

“You’re fucking freezing, Ray, what the fuck get your feet away from me,” Octavia complained in a sleep rough voice, and she burrowed her face into a shoulder - it was warm, so likely Clarke’s, because Raven smelled like the night and like water that was just turning to ice - and Raven apologised in a quiet, quiet voice.

* * *

 

“Hey, look what I found.” Clarke turned to face Octavia and she waggled her eyebrows over the obnoxiously pink sunglasses she had found. “What do you think?”

“Nice, nice. I love them. I love them, dah-link,” she said in a silly voice that made them both laugh. “You belong on the runway, Clarke, I’m thinking London. Paris. Milan.”

Raven poked her head above the aisle. Nodded. “Oh yeah, you look hot.”

“You guys are too sweet.” Clarke smiled. She waved a hand majestically. “Go on. Continue.”

“You also have excellent breasts,” Raven continued, straight-faced, and disappeared.

Octavia laughed into the elbow of her jacket at the blonde’s shock, and laughed again when the shock retreated and turned instead into pride. Clarke turned back to the mirror and adjusted her glasses, and then her bra, nodding approvingly at her reflection.

“Hey O, is that the jacket you like?”

Octavia squeezed in next to her, pulling it on. “Yeah.” She ran her hands over it and frowned a little. “But it’s pretty flimsy. I like it but I think I should look for something a little more sturdy.”

“Why not both?” Clarke turned, helped Octavia adjust the jacket. “No, I think you need one size down.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, this is too loose. This one is supposed to keep you warm and make you look sexy as fuck so you have to get the right size. Plus, it’s not supposed to be your outside jacket, it’s for layering.”

“Oh.” Octavia shrugged it off. “Do you go hiking a lot?” she asked, searching the rack for the right size. She grinned when, behind her, Clarke just laughed and laughed.

“No. Never.” She walked through the next aisle, snagged a few large heavy jackets from the mens section on the way, and ended in the boots where she pulled two pairs off the wall and held them up. “Check these out!”

“Oh nice, I love them.”

“Look at the pink lining, isn’t that so cute?”

“Look at the grip on these beasts,” Octavia gushed, turning the boots over. “We are never gonna slip in these fucking things, this is awesome.” She frowned a little down at the boots she was already wearing but she had bought them with fashion in mind, not running for her life, and after a minute she kicked them off to the side and pulled on the new boots. “I hope I don’t get blisters.”

“I thought that was the whole deal with hiking boots. Wicked support and super grip but you get blisters?”

Octavia shrugged. Threw six packs of socks from the wall into her bag on top of the rest of their ‘purchases’. They laughed when Raven staggered back to them with arms full of solar powered chargers, every gadget she could find, and a box of rub in shampoo.

“Raven Reyes, you are a god send.”

“I. Love. Hiking. Stores.” she said very seriously, and very intently, before leaving them again. Presumably to collect everything else in the store.

“Do you feel bad?” Octavia asked Clarke, looking at her reflection again. “I mean, taking all this stuff?”

Clarke shrugged. “Of course.”

“Okay.” The younger girl tugged at her lip a little. Then she brushed down the front of her jacket, the right size this time, and nodded. “Yeah, I like this.”

“Then we will take both of these - actually, no, I’ll get one in blue. Green really brings out your eyes.” She added them to their piles and groaned when she tried to lift it. “Okay, you’re going to have to pack this into the hiking packs and share the load. This is too much for me - I fucking hate exercise.”

They wandered out of the store together - Raven checked her watch with a, “Nah, we’ve still got a good fifteen minutes to get back. And we definitely need to go to the chemist. I hope to god they have the pill because I am so uninterested in a, bleeding all over the place and b, getting pregnant.”

Clarke paused, frowned, then shrugged. “Yeah. Chocolate too.”

“Gummy bears for me.”

“I wish I could hook up a proper fridge on the bus. I would kill for some icecream.”

“You know, if they don’t have the pill we’re gonna have to bring a fuckton of pads back with us. Like, noone is making them anymore probably. Oh god. When we run out, do we have to start using rags?”

“Fuck. Okay so...empty the shelves of every brand?”

“Yes.”

“Seconded.”

They climbed through the broken window of the chemist, careful steps to avoid as much glass as possible. She made the gesture for them to sweep the store and they divided, searching thoroughly for any sign of zombies or people.

They met at the front door again when they were done.

“So obviously people have been here before us.” The broken window attested to that, and great patches of empty shelves. Octavia let out a low cheer when she saw the stacks labelled Feminine Products on the shelf. “But apparently not anyone who gets a period. Nice. We are in luck, my lovely ladies.”

“And I have gummy lollies,” Clarke announced, making Octavia look to the roof in bliss, mouth a thank you to Raven’s god.

“I’ve got, umm, all the pills they had - Clarke you should have a look back here because I have no clue what any of this other medicine stuff is - plus I got heavy duty bleach, a twelve pack of deodorant, and plenty of matches and lighters.” She grinned happily and put them in different bags - ‘just in case’. “Hello, flamethrowers,” she said in a voice Clarke kind of thought might be her bedroom voice.

“Should we be concerned?” Clarke asked Octavia.

“Totally. But there’s nothing we can do. Just go along with it. Smile and wave, babe, smile and wave.”

“I heard that.”

“You were supposed to.”

“Oh, actually, I found something you might like,” Raven told her friend, voice changing from annoyed to happy in the blink of an eye and Octavia beamed at her - only to have to strangle a laugh when Raven pulled her hand out of her jacket pocket and gave her the middle finger. “Anyway,” she said, “let me think for a second. Back at the bus we’ve got...spare tires, bedding, petrol, food, water. Yeah?” Clarke nodded. “Now we’ve got girly stuff too - ingredients for flamethrowers, a couple more knives, pads, candy, oh and check out this lipstick I found, I think it will suit you, Clarke.” She threw it over to her and Clarke caught it, fumbled, and caught it again before it hit the ground.

She looked at the label. “Harlot Orange. My favourite shade, how did you know? Thanks.”

“Sure, anytime Miss Harlot.” Raven grinned. “So - are we missing anything?”

Clarke shrugged. “I’m going to check the medicines. You guys sweep through here again and pick up anything you think we might need. We only have,” she checked her watch, “maybe two more minutes before we have to sprint to get back.”

“Okie dokie, Clarke.” Octavia saluted her. When she was gone into the back room, she grabbed her pack and walked over to Raven. “Look what I got.” She pulled back the flap to show off the necks of at least four bottles of alcohol and Raven made a low sound of approval.

“See, this is why you’re the smart one. You think of everything.”

“Yeah, but you’re the genius.”

“Yeah, but you have the street smarts.”

“Yeah but you-”

“If you two are done complimenting one another, we should probably leave,” Clarke suggested from the doorway.

“True. Don’t want any big brothers getting worried.” Octavia rolled her eyes and wrenched the door to the chemists open, forgetting the open window - and they all froze when the tinkling of a bell sounded. “Oh no.”

There was no time to hesitate. They strapped their bags securely into place and took off at a run.

The groans started in the distance. Raven had set the bomb far across town the day before but the fire it caused had burned itself out after an hour or two and they had no doubt that the zombies had begun their slow, long treks back into every corner of the city in the time that followed.

“I’m sorry,” Octavia apologised as they puffed up the hill. The others shook their heads hard.

“It’s fine,” Clarke excused.

“Yeah.” Raven held her hand back for Octavia, hauling her up and over a road block, then did the same for Clarke. “But I’m taking back what I said about you being street smart.” She laughed when Octavia shoved at her and they had to catch at one another to stay upright when they almost tripped. “Maybe we should save the violence for when we’re safe.”

“Good plan, yeah, I like that plan.”

“That’s a no go for that plan, excuse me,” Clarke interrupted, and she ripped her knife out of its sheathe and embedded it in the neck of a zombie that came out of nowhere - really, it had been squatting somewhere in the dark by the car they were skirting around, but all Octavia knew what that she wasn’t in immediate danger, then she was, and then Clarke was kicking a zombie in the stomach and telling her to “Run, come on Octavia, let’s go.”

“That was so cool. Clarke, you’re so cool.”

//

“Clarke, where the hell are you guys? It’s been over an hour.”

“Heyo, it’s Raven. The whole ‘getting back to the bus plan’ has been put on ice.” Octavia rolled her eyes hard and Raven frowned at her.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t sound so cold.”

“Raven, what is going on?”

“So, funny story, we’re trapped in a freezer.”

“Hence the cold puns. You’re not funny.”

“Screw you, Bellamy, I’m very funny.” Raven ripped the phone away from her ear and handed it back to Clarke. “Here, he’s being a jerk.”

“Hey Bellamy.” Clarke held the phone awkwardly between her shoulder and her cheek. “Yeah, we’re stuck in a freezer.

“A freezer.”

“Yeah. It’s not on, the power must have cut out ages ago because it smells horrible. But hey, at least we made it close enough to be in range of Monty’s thingamajig phone thing, right?”

“Thank god for small victories, I guess.” He sighed. “Okay. Where are you guys exactly?”

“Just down the road. We’re in some fast food place, in the freezer out the back.”

“Some fast food place? That’s what you’re giving us to work on?”

“Sorry I didn’t look at the name while I was running for my life. Just...come and get us, okay. Here’s a hint - there will be zombies outside.”

“Thanks. I would never have figured that out.”

“Bell,” Clarke added, hesitant, before he could hang up, and she lowered her voice as much as possible in the small space and turned away from Raven and Octavia. “It’s not a big freezer,” she said, “it’s really dark and we’re crammed in here and they’re banging on the door so get us out. Soon.”

She almost heard the moment what she said clicked into place. “Octavia,” he said. “Is she okay?”

“No. Not really. I mean, yes, but,”

“No, I get it. We’ll be there soon. Time to try the bus out, right?”

“Right.” She hung up, tucked her phone back into the small protective case around her neck. They really didn’t need their phones to shatter - and her’s was the one her mum had called so they doubly needed it.

“He’s coming then?” Octavia asked.

“Yep. Of course he is.”

“Nice. Good.” She let her breath out slowly and nodded. “Good.”

//

Later, they wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the moment it happened. One moment, Octavia was fine. And in the next, she wasn’t.

A zombie slammed into the door. Octavia slammed right back.

Clarke thought she might have heard a crack. She hoped it was the door. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was the door. She didn’t think it was.

Raven grabbed her before she could rip the door of the fridge open and pulled her to the back of the fridge. “You can’t do that,” she said, and it was mostly apologetic but a little stern, just enough to make its way through the panic that hung, clouded and toxic, around Octavia’s head.

“I need to get out.”

“We will.”

“I’m not afraid of them,” she yelled, and the beating against the door began again and Clarke stood a shield between the girls and the door. “I’m not afraid,” she repeated.

“I know.”

Clarke sent off a message to Bellamy - faster - and Raven held Octavia’s eyes and nodded seriously each time her friend reminded her, “I am not afraid, I’m not, I’m not afraid”.

//

Twelve bloody minutes later and they were stepping back onto the bus.

“So,” Jasper said, dragging the word out with a wide grin that matched his teasing tone. “How was shopping? Did you girls have fun?” When Octavia said nothing, just moved past him down to the end of the bus and curled herself into a seat there, Jasper lifted his eyebrows. Of all of them, she was usually the one to humour him. “Whoa, what’s wrong?”

“You mean other than being pinned down by zombies?” Raven shrugged. “I don’t know. Your face?”

“Ouch. You don’t mean that.”

Raven just shrugged again and went to join Octavia.

“Monty,” Clarke asked, rifling through her first aid supplies, “have you finished planning how we’re going to get to The Farm?”

“The last few miles are a bit confusing since I don’t know exactly where-” Clarke fixed him with a demanding gaze - one that said you have exactly three seconds to finish your sentence - and he gulped. “Yes.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Monty saluted her and swung his way up to sitting behind Lincoln. “I guess we’re partners today,” he said, smiling at the other boy.

“Heading south?”

“You know it.”

Clarke sat down next to Octavia and glared at the faces far too close to where she needed to work. “Bellamy, Raven, shoo.”

“She’s my sister-”

“We’re worried about her too-”

“Let us stay-”

“Don’t be fucking rude, Clarke-”

“Both of you,” Octavia hissed. “Go away.”

They scattered.

Clarke thought for a moment about complimenting Octavia for that feat but she had the sneaking suspicion that a lot of her forcefulness came from the strength of pretending she wasn’t in pain. Instead, Clarke let it drop and she held out her hand for Octavia to put hers in and she probed at the rapidly swelling hand and tried not to stop when Octavia hissed through her teeth and flinched.

“Tell me where it hurts the most,” she asked, and she went to where Octavia pointed. “And on a scale of one to ten?” She added two points to Octavia’s answer of four and nodded. “I don’t think it’s too bad. I don’t think it’s broken but obviously I would need an x-ray to be sure and I don’t have that. Here’s hoping it’s just sprained so I will wrap it and give you panadol to bring down the swelling, but we don’t have ice and we don’t really have any painkillers.”

“So punching a foot thick metal door was not the greatest idea I’ve ever had.” Octavia leaned her head back against the wall of the bus and gave Clarke a small, sad smile. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“You’d understand if-”

“I understand.” Clarke couldn’t help but look over at Bellamy, hunched and worried in his seat, and Octavia froze, tensed, winced. “It wasn’t easy on him either. He didn’t tell me a lot.”

“Whatever. It happened a long time ago.”

“Does Raven know?”

“Yeah. I’m scared of the dark, of course she knows.” Octavia flinched again when Clarke pinned the bandage into place.

“Claustrophobic too, right?” Clarke asked, very casually, and Octavia just shrugged and nodded and Clarke moved on. “Okay, done. Wiggle your fingers for me?” She did. “Good. Here is your prize.”

“Ooh, the mildest painkiller in the world. I feel so lucky.”

“Shut up, O,” Clarke laughed. She handed her a water bottle to wash the pill down and continued with her instructions. “Try to keep the bandage clean, we might need it later. Also, it it feels weird or too tight or you see something like a blue tinge to your fingernails or you lose any feeling, let me know straight away, okay?”

“Sure. Hey,there’s one good thing about this. Or, something that means it’s not as bad as it could have been anyway.” Clarke raised her eyebrows in a question. “At least it’s not my sword hand,” she said seriously, and then winked and made a motion that could only be taken one way. “I need my sword hand.”

“Oh my god, Octavia.”

“Get it? Double entendre. Sword hand?”

“Octavia, stop.”

“My wanking hand. My masturbatory tool. My pleasure provider.”

Clarke snorted loudly and then laughed all the harder when the others turned around to look at them and it set both of them off, laughing so hard they cried.

There was probably some hysteria in it, the tears came far too quickly, some coming down off an adrenaline high, but mostly it was just a really soft, really surprising, really silly happiness that made them laugh until their bellies ached.

//

Octavia started complaining about Bellamy hovering over her after she had withstood a surprisingly large amount of it.

“Seriously, Bell. I’m fine. It’s just a little sprain.” She widened her eyes at Clarke, who decided not to intervene and say, well, maybe it was a sprain. “It’s fine.”

“‘Tis only a flesh wound,” Monty called back to them and he smiled, pleased, chuffed, when Octavia laughed.

“Yes, thank you! Plus, I’m not even bleeding.”

//

“When will my hand return from the war?”

“Octavia.”

//

“Come on Clarke. Ballpark it. When it this thing gonna be all healed up and hunky dory again?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“How well can you behave? Are you going to punch a zombie in the face with it?”

“No! Who do you think I am?” Octavia looked around at everyone, every one of them avoiding eye contact with her, and she sighed. “I’ll try not to.”

“A week then. Maybe two.”

“A week or two? No, that’s not okay, we are in the middle of whatever the fuck this is - I need my hand.”

“What you need is to rest up and heal. We’re going to be fine, O, we’re just going to drive across the country. It’s basically a road trip.”

“Roadtrips,” she grumbled, tired, leaning her head back against the back of her seat, “have beach days and cafes and stops at museums and parks and restaurants to blow money that we, as poor students, don’t have. They don’t have hungry ex-people and constant fear so if this is a roadtrip it’s a really crap deadly one.” She groze. Mind abuzz with apologies she only managed to get out half of one before Clarke smiled at her and shook her head.

“It’s fine.”

“No, that was such a shitty thing to say, I’m sorry, I-”

“Octavia, it’s fine. Really. Shut up.”

“Yes ma’am.”

//

“Am I healed yet?”

“No.”

“What about now?”

“No.”

//

“Can I use my hand yet?”

“No, Octavia, you can’t.”

“What about now?”

“Bellamy, tell me, have you ever wanted to be an only child?”

//

“I swear to god, O, if you open your mouth one more time to say something about your hand I will chop the damn thing off, do you hear me?”

//

Octavia, finally asleep after Clarke had just sighed a long suffering sigh when Raven suggested funnelling vodka into the other girls mouth, was a source of concern for everyone.

Bellamy and Raven worried, pacing and staring and frowning, about her hand possibly being broken? Getting infected? What if she gets septic, Clarke, is that a thing? How bad could this get?

The rest of them just worried that they would hit a pothole and lurch Octavia awake again. Jasper was fine - he had long since stoppered his ears with Super Deluxe earplugs he had found in the chemist and was happily humming tunelessly to some song playing in his head as he looked out the window.

Clarke stopped next to him on her way up to sit with Wells, laid her hand on his shoulder. “Jasper?”

“Clarke! Sorry, sorry.” He pulled his earplugs out, stuffed them in his pocket. “What’s up?”

“No, nothing. Just wondering how you’re doing.”

He looked down at his hands, at unfamiliar grazes and the slight tremble he wasn’t sure would go away, and he shrugged. Looked back up with a smile. “Been better.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, it’s not so bad. You’re looking especially hot today.”

Clarke surprised herself with a laugh and Jasper nodded to himself, pleased, high-fived himself in an incredibly dorky move. “Thanks.”

“Sure. Any time.”

“I may take you up on that,” she said, and she clapped him on the shoulder and continued on her way up the bus to where Wells was sitting. Dropped into the seat behind him and rested her head on his back. After a moment, she shifted so her chin was on his shoulder.

“How are you doing? Any aches and pains I need to know about? The doctor is in.”

“I’m fine,” he reassured her. Twisted a little to get a better look at her. “You?”

“Super.”

“Sure, Goldilocks,” he said like he knew she was lying. He did.

“Hey.”

He turned back to her. “Yeah?”

“You’re next to drive, yeah?”

“Mhm.”

“Next time there is a road to the beach, do you think you can take it?”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

He turned his lips down thoughtfully and nodded. “I guess? Are you sure that’s a good move?”

Clarke shrugged. “The highway has been really clear, I don’t think anyone would have wandered this far from the city. We’ll be safe.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. But, there are beach rules - no one swims out too far. We really don’t have time to rescue someone from a rip.”

“But getting caught in a terrifying and deadly rip is my favourite thing to do at the beach, Wells, you’re such a buzzkill.” Wells laughed at that, loudly enough that Octavia jerked upright, bleary but awake and ready to roll.

“What’s up?”

She was greeted with a series of undisguised groans and she frowned.

“That’s really hurtful, guys. I am injured. The least you could do is pretend to be happy that I’m still here. Terribly injured. Badly hurt.”

“You have a little boo-boo,” Raven said.

“Is that what I said to you when you broke your arm?” Octavia challenged. “Or when you fell off your bike and scraped your knees?”

“That is exactly what you said.”

“Oh. Well…” Octavia crossed her arms, winced when she put pressure on her hand. “Sorry.”

“I forgive you. Bitch,” Raven coughed into her hand.

“Really? Yeah. Nice. So mature.”

“I know I am but what are you?”

* * *

 

Wells pulled the bus into a small carpark lined with palms. There was a path and seven concrete steps that lead down into the sand.

It was cold and the water stretched blue-grey in wind-whipped peaks far far out to sea. Clarke took her boots off slowly, tucked her socks into them and left them inside the bus. The sand crunched in cold clumps beneath her toes and it wasn’t the fine sand that she was used to, the white soft thing of the more northern beaches. This was grittier, a little greyer. The surf slipped soft and quiet up the beach in incremental waves and before she quite knew what she was going, Clarke had stripped off her jacket, then her shirt and her jeans and she stepped away and out into the water.

It was cold.

Almost immediately, she couldn’t feel her toes and her skin started to numb beneath the water line but she continued to walk out until it was at her waist. Her fingers shook and her breath caught in her chest but the sting of salt in her nose and on her tongue and the mercilessness of it all felt right. The redness leeched out of her skin and she dunked her head underneath the swell of a wave, scrubbing at any part of her body she could reach. When her head broke the surface a minute later, there was a smiling Octavia next to her.

“I’m more a fan of skinny dipping in hot tubs, to be honest,” she said, “but this is fun too.”

“Don’t you dare get that bandage wet.” Clarke grabbed her elbow, hoisted the bandage far above the waves, made sure that it was still in the clear. Octavia wrapped it around Clarke’s shoulder. After a moment, Clarke sighed. “It is nice, isn’t it?”

“Cold as fuck.” Octavia pressed a little closer to her. “But yeah. Nice.”

“Make way for Jesus.” Raven pushed between them and wrapped an arm around each of their waists. “You two are fucking insane this is cold as fuck.”

“That’s what I just said! Nice! Great minds think alike.”

“Dude, of course you said it, it’s fucking cold. Hence, cold as fuck.” Raven shivered hard and whined, bent her body as much as possible into her best friend to escape the water, the cold. “I don’t like this.”

Clarke just smiled. She combed her fingers through her wet hair and shook it out, ducking again beneath the waves to scrub at herself again.

“Cannon ball!” Jasper shouted from somewhere behind them and the girls shrieked at their backs were splashed with cold.

“You’re dead meat, mate. Hear me? Dead!”

Octavia laughed when Raven tore off after their friend and she looked at Clarke, submerged, and decided to leave her be. God knew the pain Clarke was in. Octavia didn’t. So she turned back and accepted the towel Bellamy held out to her and sat, digging the fingers of her good hand into the sand in patterns.

Clarke came out to join her after some time and they sat together, watching Jasper and Monty run from Raven, Wells only ever straying as far in as his knees , and Bellamy standing tense on the beach keeping a worried eye on all of them.

“He never relaxes, does he?”

Octavia shrugged. “No.”

“Bellamy.” Clarke waved him over and patted the ground next to her. “Sit down. They’re fine.”

“But-”

“Bell,” Octavia leaned around Clarke to roll her eyes at him. “Relax. How do you make those drip castles again?” She held up a handful of sand and he sighed heavily.

“Well, for one thing the sand has to be a lot more wet. Let’s go further down, come on.” He stood and offered his little sister a hand, tugging her up and then, making her squeal with later, picking her clean up off her feet and throwing her over his shoulder. He dumped her in the shallows, making her laugh louder, and Clarke watched them all.

Lincoln was quiet when he sat next to her.

“It’s beautiful.”

She nodded. The sun hung behind a curtain of clouds and here and there it broke into columns of light, making a patchwork of the sea. It was beautiful.

It was beautiful and it was cold and it was empty and bleak and immense and terrifying and it was beautiful.

“I’d like to paint it. I wish I had something.” He shrugged. “It’s nice to just look too, though.”

“Yeah.” She leaned into his shoulder. “It is.”

It was another few long minutes before Lincoln sighed. “Ready to go in?” He stood and shucked off his shirt and Clarke whistled appreciatively, loudly, and for that he reached down and picked her up in much the same manner Bellamy had Octavia and he walked them down into the surf.

“Fuck it’s cold!” he said and Clarke struggled to free herself. When he left to do something - likely swim with Raven and Octavia - Clarke let herself float, staring up at the sky. She closed her eyes and as each of her limbs fell numb she wondered, just for a moment, how easy it might be to just...sink.

Water skittered over her face, making her splutter and open her eyes and Lincoln was looking at her wide-eyed, laughing apologies. “I’m sorry! I was aiming for Raven!”

Clarke stood, hair dripping around her shoulders, eyes flashing, looking every inch vengeful.

Octavia moved to stand in front of Lincoln and Clarke feigned anger.

“Get out of the way, Octavia.”

“No.”

“Get out of the way. He deserves this.”

“No. And you won’t splash me, I know it. You don’t want your precious bandage getting wet.”

“We have more.” Clarke moved her hands in the water and Octavia flinched. Lincoln picked her up and moved her out of the way.

“Run,” he insisted, “save yourself.”

//

“Do you know,” Bellamy scolded, wrapping the blanket tighter around shivering shoulders, “how very stupid all of that was? Of all the days to go swimming in the ocean,” he moved on down to Raven and Octavia, draping a blanket over them, shivering together, “we had to pick the coldest day we’ve had yet.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Clarke defended. She wrapped her fingers tight into her blanket. Wells was warm behind her, wonderfully so, and he shifted and slung an arm around her shoulders and rested his book on his knees to turn the page one-handed.

“It was kind of stupid,” he laughed at her quietly. His legs still felt cold, even wrapped in a blanket and with two pairs of socks. He couldn’t imagine how she felt - she’d dunked her whole body.

She shrugged. “Worth it. Look.” She showed him her hands, scoured with salt and sand, and smiled. “All clean.”

* * *

 

They drove for much of the night, taking it in turns to drive until Monty said, “We’re an hour out, something like that” and then they stopped. The night was dark and empty and they didn’t need to attract all the zombies to the sound of their bus. So it wasn’t until morning that Sydney appeared in front of them, quiet and still. Smoke billowed from buildings across the harbour and the water lay flat and uncut but the ferries and boats that usually scuttled across.

Monty and Clarke looked out onto the city with a great deal of unease.

“This is so weird,” Monty murmured. “I grew up here. This is so weird.” Clarke shook out her shoulders and hands. She had just given up her drivers seat to Lincoln and she moved, stretching, to stand with Monty at the front window.

“Yeah.”

“It’s never this quiet.”

He laid his hand flat against the glass, his breath leaving small empty clouds against it he was so close. Clarke watched him. She got the feeling that, if he could, he would climb right out and - what his next step would be, she wasn’t sure. He didn’t know either, probably, but he looked wan and tired and sad.

She got the feeling it would be something desperate.

“Clarke?” She rested a hand on Monty’s shoulder for a moment and he laid his hand on top. She pulled away then and went back to Lincoln, who pointed at the curious lumbering figures turning towards them. “They can hear us.”

“It’s fine. We’ll blow something up as a distraction if we need to get something or we’ll just keep driving.” He nodded. She yawned. “Coffee,” she said, “would be so good.”

“Yeah.”

“I want it.”

“God, so badly.”

Clarke frowned. “How much do you want to bet that Raven could build us a kettle?”

“Dude. Nothing. She definitely could. She could build an espresso machine if she wanted to and prob’ly out of, like, three paper clips and my belt.”

Clarke bobbed her head. Yawned again. “I’m sorry,” she said around her yawn. Lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool. You’ve been driving for hours, you should get some rest.”

“Nah, I slept for most of the night. I’m just being lazy.” He laughed and gave her a sideways glance because she had checked up on them all every half hour, he knew she hadn’t slept in the slightest, and she ignored it. Looked down at her hands, shook out the cramps.

She thought for a minute about going back to her seat and getting her crowbar. Her hands felt empty without it, she felt nervous, on edge, vulnerable without it, but carrying it around on their bus? With only them? She didn’t want to answer the questions that would bring.

Still. Her hands felt empty.

She opened and closed them again, shook them out again, and stretched.

“Look at that,” Monty said, awed and quiet.

“Hmm?”

“Sunrise.”

It broke against the still water of the harbour, turned it gold in flecks and Clarke held her breath. It was so beautiful. It lit up too the many windows of the skyscrapers, first a light white and then, as the sun hit the clouds above, it light bled a deep, deep red across the city.

“Aren’t we lucky?” Monty mused, thoughtless. “To get to see something like that.”

There were so many things she could say in response, so many things she could remind him of. Could tell him the last thing she felt was lucky. But instead Clarke just nodded and crept her hand down to grip onto his.

“Yeah,” she said. “Wow.” She turned to wake up the others. Raven punched out at her, and she knocked her hand away and let Octavia wake her up enough, let Octavia drag her sleepily over to the opposite side of the bus. They drooped there, but quiet smiles were a good sign. Bellamy didn’t need waking up. He hadn’t slept either. She was nearing Jasper and Wells when she stopped, cocked her head to the side. She moved to the side of the bus, curious.

“What was that?”

“Hmm?”

“That.” She pointed. There was a flash of something, down the street perpendicular to them. “There’s something out there.”

//

Run.

Survive.

She used to like running. Used to feel like she was flying, had always been easy, purposeless, something she did to feel connected with her body.

But this? There was nothing easy about this and purpose - survive - was slammed into every ragged breath and thump of it and she always felt like she was going too fast, like there were snapped jaws at her ankles, like she was a bullet about to strike, like she was constantly searching in the dark for the next step and she kept falling through the air.

She wasn’t sure there was a body to connect to anymore, just fraying nerves and tough skin.

//

“Hey - hey there’s someone there!”

“Yeah. Zombies. What a surprise.”

“No look, it’s a girl. She’s running away.”

And she was. Small and slight and quick - and not nearly fast enough. Not with more zombies pouring out of all the streets when they heard the bus rattling down the street.

Not nearly fast enough.

Clarke made her way to the front. “We need to turn around,” she told Lincoln.

“Clarke, there is a horde of zombies that have heard our bus, I can’t just-”

“Lincoln, there’s a girl out there who isn’t in a nice safe bus.”

Octavia, suddenly awake and alert and clipping her sword onto her back came up to stand with Clarke. “Turn around, Lincoln.”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel and Clarke thought for a moment that he was going to ignore them. She couldn’t - wouldn’t - do anything if he did. Hell, it might even be the right choice for all of them, what she was suggesting might get them killed, but then he was spinning the wheel, and they held tight to the bars in the bus, and he dropped his foot down heavier on the accelerator.

Clarke grabbed her jacket and her crowbar where they sat tucked into the top of her bag. She shook Wells awake as she pushed her arms through the sleeves. Sunglasses on, face mask tied around her neck, she smiled down at him. “Going to save someone. What does that make us, Wells?”

“Big damn heroes,” he yawned.

“Nice. I like that.”

“Do I get breakfast first before heroism or…?”

“After.”

“Rightio then.” He stood and followed her to the door. “Looks like we’re not really going to be slowing down,” he commented, and Lincoln grinned sharply and shrugged.

“Makes it more fun, right? I’ll drop down as slow as I can go.”

“Thanks, mate.”

He brought the bus slower and slower, as much as he was able, and before Bellamy could say what he was thinking - Octavia shouldn’t go, she was injured, why rescue this girl at all - they had slammed the door open and the three leaped from the bus, rolled, and shot back up onto their feet.

“You know, I had my doubts but it was a good idea to practise that.” Wells threw the comment to Octavia over his shoulder.

“Hey, thanks babe.”

“Sure.”

“Less talkie, more walkie,” Clarke urged. She pointed ahead to the girl, twenty metres away maybe, and she looked like she was pulling away from the zombies, widening the gap just the slightest margin.

But she couldn’t see what Clarke could see. The dip of uneven pavement and Clarke grunted, pushed herself faster, because the girl was going to fall, trip, and she was going to be swarmed. “Wells,” she panted, and he nodded and took off to the side, yelling and waving his arms, clapping his hands sharply above his head, anything to get attention on him.

//

She would have made it. She would have escaped, somehow.

But then there were three more people to contend with, to think about, and one of them was an idiot of a boy who decided that making a great deal of noise was the right course of action. Stupid, stupid boy. But the zombies did falter, pulled in two ways, and she pulled out ahead of them just a touch more.

She would have made it.

She wasn’t sure that there was a name for the feeling (not fear, more than that, maybe dread) that dropped ice-cold and heavy into her stomach when her boot caught on the pavement and her ankle yanked and she flew forwards - really flew - and landed on the pavement ahead of her. Landed wasn’t the right word. No, she slammed into it, breath propelled out of her all of it, knees and hands and chin slamming separately and painfully into the hard ground. Her teeth knocked into her lip and blood pooled in her mouth, dripped down her chin. She spat it out and forced herself up, up onto her hands and knees, survive, up further but her ankle throbbed so painfully she cried out and a hand locked onto her calf and she did her best to blink away the tears because they served exactly zero helpful purpose. Her fingers scrabbled hard on the ground, searching for some crack, some sliver something she could dig her hand into and pull herself to freedom, but it was smooth and she was being dragged backwards and none of her kicks were landing.

Then, she was free. There were two hands on her shoulders and they hauled her up and all she could see were blue eyes and then a voice broke through the ringing of her ears and it was beautiful and it said run.

She did.

//

Octavia sliced at the first row of zombies. The blood that spilled spurted putrid and she did her best not to puke at the smell, instead cutting twice more and retreating. Something about it - the red, probably, or maybe the sound or the heat of blood, made the zombies pause and they looked over their companion with keen interest. Octavia ran to Clarke and the stranger.

“How you doing, mate?” She grabbed the stranger’s shoulder and tugged her forward.

A grunt.

“Faster?” Octavia asked. Widened desperate eyes. Clarke shook her head.

“Ankle. Twisted.”

“Shit.”

“Yep.”

They ended their conversation there, adrenaline and breathlessness making sentences near impossible. Clarke took a moment to gauge where the bus would end up from how Lincoln was driving, and she turned them a little to the left.

The girl was first. Octavia and Clarke pushed her up and into Raven and Bellamy’s arms. She was swallowed into the body of the bus and then Octavia was next, and Clarke.

“Hey! Wait for me!”

Clarke dropped next to Octavia, boneless, onto the top step and waved. “Come on Wells, run.”

“I can’t run - as fast - as a bus,” he said between breaths.

Clarke clapped for him once. “Push it,” she called out, before she tiredly rolled onto her knees and pushed up on wobbling arms to stand and make her way down to where Raven had lead the girl.

Octavia carried on her work with Wells.

“I can’t - run that - fast,” he cried out.

“Alright, alright.” Octavia nodded to Lincoln, who started to slow - they had left the zombies behind, they had swarmed over the injured ones, sniffing out the blood and indiscriminately tearing at them.

“Octavia, yes, thank you.” His hand was at the door and she grinned.

“Or,” she said, and Wells yelled a wordless yell at her because he knew that tone, “you could speed up, Lincoln. Make Wells work for his breakfast.”

But Lincoln just laughed and shook his head no and slowed and Wells slung himself onto the bus and braced himself against the closed door. He sunk to the floor and took a moment to just breathe.

She gave him a few moments, then asked, “You okay?”

“I hate you.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“You’re the actual worst.” But still he took the hand she held out and let her pull him to his feet. “You are the worst friend ever.”

“But you do love me.”

“Whatever.”

They stayed up the front of the bus. The energy down the back of the bus wasn’t something any of them wanted to be involved in. Silence pressed outwards in an almost tangible way.

Bellamy’s, a stern and disapproving silence, made up of crossed arms, a wide solid stance, and eyes that took in a small, hunched girl and didn’t trust her.

Bellamy’s silence was easily matched by the strangers - the same mistrust, but more brittle, made with hunched shoulders and an ankle tucked protectively behind a folded leg and eyes that looked up underneath long lashes and memorised. She was absolute stillness and hands wrapped around her waist, the hard edge of a knife hidden.

The third silence was Clarke’s and it was tired and gentle and slow in the way she set out her supplies, caught and worried at her bottom lip with her teeth, scanned an unfamiliar body for injuries with quick, intent eyes.

“Bellamy,” Clarke said, and the stranger flinched. Bellamy turned his head slightly toward her. She took off her sunglasses, tucked them into the pocket of her jacket. “You can go check on Wells and Octavia. Thanks.” He narrowed his eyes further at the stranger but he did nod, and turn, and go. Clarke waited until he was completely gone and she wondered what she would have to do to make that right with him. They were friends, not whatever she just treated him like, and she felt bad for pushing him away. But he had a mistrustful streak a mile wide and she could, she just didn’t want to deal with that at the moment. Not when there was a girl cowering in the back of their bus and looking at her with eyes like that, green eyes flecked brown like the sea against cliffs.

“Can I?” Clarke asked her. She pointed to the girls ankle and, when she got a nod, reached out to pull it into her lap. The boot came off with a minor struggle.

“Sorry. I haven’t really had a chance to change my socks.” Her voice was higher pitched than Clarke had been expecting, and softer, and Clarke just grinned at her. She felt silly doing it but she couldn’t help it. A daring rescue and zombies and a girl who apologised for her socks.

“It’s fine. None of us have.” She gave her a shrug. “I think I’ve lost my sense of smell anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

“Very well.” She did her best not to wince when Clarke probed at the tender flesh of her ankle but she couldn’t fool a doctor - almost doctor - or at least not one who was as good as Clarke was at reading the pull of muscles and the way pain sometimes registered in the eyes, not the face. “I don’t think it’s that bad,” she said, and Clarke snorted.

“You’re not going to be running on it any time soon. But I’m going to bandage it so well you’ll be able to pull off a fast hobble. Sound good?”

“Very acceptable.” She watched as Clarke finished her examination, pasted two band-aids over some nasty blisters, and then strapped her ankle. She turned her foot left then right then rolled her ankle very slowly when Clarke was finished, then nodded her approval. “Thank you.”

“We aren’t done.” Clarke handed her back her sock and boot and moved forward, just a little. “If it’s alright, I mean.” Another nod. Clarke cleaned the girls face very carefully, wiped her chin, checked her lip but the cuts from her teeth were shallow and would scab over quickly. She moved down to elbows and arms and gestured for her to shrug off the jacket, which she did, and Clarke set to work on the grazes there.

“Do you have a name?”

“Yes.”

Clarke smiled. “Can I have it?”

“I don’t know, doctor.”

“Clarke. Griffin. And not quite a doctor.” Clarke lifted her head and, this time, smiled at the girl. Winningly. She knew it was winningly because the girl caught her breath and flinched a little when her tongue darted out and hit the sensitive bumps on her lips. She knew it was winningly because girls? Girls Clarke could deal with. Girls Clarke liked to deal with. She let her smile soften a little and she winked. “But don’t worry. I’m very good with my hands.”

“Well. Not quite a doctor Clarke Griffin,” the stranger said, and her voice didn’t falter in the slightest as Clarke washed her injuries out with alcohol. But, with the full sleeve of tattoos Clarke could see now that her jacket was gone, she probably had a fairly decent pain threshold. “I am Lexa.”

“Lexa.” Clarke nodded. “It’s nice to meet you. Hands next.”

They were gloved, Lexa’s hands, and her fingers closed almost to fists. Involuntary movement. The very next moment she made them relax and she let them sit loose in her lap.

“That’s not necessary.”

“Are they hurt?”

Lexa didn’t answer that, so Clarke just reached over and hooked her fingers underneath the first glove. Looked her hand over, wiped it clean, bandaged it. She let Lexa put the glove back on when she moved to her right hand and the second glove took a touch more persuasion to remove. Not because Lexa was fighting it. Rather, she was looking away and her hand lay limp in Clarke’s. No. The glove stuck where it was and took some persuading to come away from Lexa’s hand, stuck there with blood.

Clarke checked the new scratches made from Lexa’s rough landing first. Cleaned, bandaged. Then she turned Lexa’s hand slightly. “Is it alright if I…?” she asked, and when Lexa nodded, she removed the rough bandage from where Lexa’s pinkie should be.

“Ouch,” Clarke said mildly, eyes examining the cauterized wound carefully. It wasn’t neat but at least it was clean - no sign of infection. But burns were incredibly painful and susceptible to infection and Clarke blew out a shaky breath.

“When did this happen?”

“Five days ago. And a half.”

“You’re really, really lucky this didn’t get infected.” Lexa scowled at the wall. She wasn’t looking down at it and Clarke wondered, sickness rolling in her stomach, what it might feel like to lose a finger. “You probably knew that. Okay.” She delved into her kit. “I’m going to put some burn cream on this, just in case, and bandage it a little better. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Clarke worked silently, paused, gentled herself further when Lexa winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” the other girl grunted. “Just get it over with.”

“Okay.” She finished quickly, just ignoring the small sounds of pain that escaped, and Lexa nodded when Clarke offered her the glove. She filled with cotton swabs the space where her pinkie finger would have gone and pulled it back over Lexa’s hand. “Those will soak up any leakage,” she explained. “And they’re super easy to change. No washing required.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Lexa.” Clarke packed her things up slowly. The others had given her space to help the newcomer - somehow it didn’t feel right to think of her as a stranger anymore, not when her name was Lexa, not when she looked at her like she was good and exactly as gentle as she was trying so hard to be - but they would be itching by now to know who she was, whether she could be trusted, and Clarke knew that the moment she moved away from Lexa’s side they would swarm her and the interrogation would begin.

Who are you?

Where are you from?

How did you survive?

Where are you going?

What do you want?

Can we trust you?

Despite her unwillingness to let that happen, there was a limit to how long Clarke could linger and so finally she packed the last of her things in her bad and stood. She offered both hands to Lexa, who shook her head no and stood on her own, stumbling forward and into Clarke.

“I’m sorry, my ankle,” she explained, and Clarke helped her to the nearest seat.

//

“Alright,” Bellamy growled at her, and he crossed his arms hard over his chest. “Answer our questions or we’ll kick you off at the next safe place we find.”

Octavia scoffed. “No one agreed to that. Book!”

“Yeah, boo! We didn’t agree to that. It’s a fucking democracy, mate, sit the fuck down.” Raven threw Jasper’s shoe at him, which he ducked, and when she looked at the stranger it was with an easy smile but not a safe one. “But seriously, answer our questions.”

Lexa nodded.

“Name?”

“Lexa.”

“Last name?”

“Woods.”

“Age?”

She frowned over to Jasper, who had asked, and he gripped his weapon more tightly. Clarke wondered when exactly in the last week he had lost the other half of his smile. “Twenty-three.”

“Why did you come to our bus?”

“I didn’t. I was running and you drove by.”

Bellamy snorted like he didn’t believe her, like she somehow tricked them into picking her up. “How have you survived?”

“Luck. Mostly.”

“Are you part of a group?” he continued, questions coming quick on the tail of each of her answers.

“No.” Lexa hesitated then. Bellamy gave Clarke a look that said Lie. “Not anymore,” she added, and even Bellamy backed off a little.

“You lost someone?” Wells got a nod. “I’m sorry, Lexa. We all are.”

“It happens.”

“Yeah. It does.”

“So.” Octavia ran a hand through her hair. She offered Lexa a smile and the atmosphere relaxed. “Are you headed somewhere? Do you have a plan?”

“Victoria. There is someone there I need to get to.”

“Yeah?”

“Her name is Costia,” Lexa said quietly, “and she is alive.” They didn’t ask how she knew. She was certain of it and for some, that was enough. For others, they just thought the kinder thing would be to let her believe it.

//

“We can’t trust her. We don’t know her.”

Clarke rolled her eyes and Bellamy glared at her.

“I’m serious, Clarke.”

“I don’t care. She’s human, we’re going through Victoria, why can’t she come with us?”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe because we can’t trust people. Have you forgotten the last human we came across?”

Everyone sucked in a low breathe but Clarke just waved the comment away.

(She hadn't forgotten.)

“She hasn’t killed any of us yet, and you weren’t the one attacked by the way. So how about we give her the benefit of the doubt?”

“This is madness.”

“This is Sparta,” Octavia muttered, making Raven laugh.

Bellamy glared at the pair, then back at Clarke. “We can’t afford to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

Jasper shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re not monsters, dude.” He looked back over at Lexa, who hurriedly looked away and tried to make herself smaller. He lowered his voice. “Besides, there are eight of us and she’s just a scared girl.”

When they all nodded in agreement, Clarke pressed her lips together thoughtfully. Is that what they saw when they looked at her? Small, delicate, when that was true. Thin too. But…

Was she making it up?

Seeing something in Lexa that wasn’t there?

She certainly looked small, waiting for their decision. Hair in flyaways from a tight braid, back pressed against a wall and sore ankle stretched out, playing with the details on her gloves. But Clarke had treated Lexa and the nervous face and nervous eyes didn’t match up with the determination, strength she had seen, with a finger lobbed off at the knuckle and burned closed, with an arm of tattoos. They didn’t add up to a small, weak little girl.

But Lexa was blinking careful eyes at the strangers who swarmed her with questions and she prodded, wincing, at a cut lip and Clarke frowned harder because she had recognised something in Lexa. Something of what she felt.

Was she seeing something that wasn’t there? Just because she felt like she had been tasked with swallowing the sun didn’t mean that Lexa felt the same too-full, burning devastation of self that came with surviving something that’s supposed to rip you apart. Maybe not, but she had recognised something, and if they weren’t the same then maybe they were inverse of each other. Two sides of something. Made of the same metal, then, and Clarke knew that in Lexa’s place she would hide. Pretend.

So, when Clarke saw the glint of something metal at her side when Lexa shifted, she smiled down at her hands. Understanding brought a wave of relief with it, released a knot of tension. Lexa _was_ a survivor. A manipulator, maybe, and therefore perhaps not to be trusted, but there was a trustworthiness in someone like that. Clarke trusted that she would do what it took, whatever it took. The knife? Clarke was sure she wasn't going to use it unless she was given a reason. And a reason to stay and not use the knife? Perhaps something like a much safer, much quicker way of getting to Victoria? Clarke could offer her that. 

//

“I don’t trust her.”

“Please, dear god, say something else for once Bellamy.” She stuffed as many packets into her bag as she could. “I get it. You’ve said it over and over and over and over again.”

“Well I don’t like it. I don’t like her. I don’t think she’s telling us the whole truth.” He frowned thoughtfully at the ingredients written on the packet he had picked up before he dropped it into his bag. Clarke just swept the shelf empty. “I want to know what happened to the people she was with,” he mused, looking out the wall of windows to their bus. She was in there, guarded by Wells and Octavia. He had insisted.

“Hey. No. Don’t you dare ask her about that.” Clarke rocked up onto her tiptoes and glared at him over the top of the shelves.

“But-”

“No.” Clarke scowled at him. “You want to tell her everything that happened while you were in the army?”

“No.”

“No. So leave her be. I trust her, Bellamy. Besides, what do you want us to do? Leave her on her own in the middle of nowhere? We don’t do that.”

Bellamy looked back out the window. There was no one in the gas station with them but still he ducked his head down, stepped closer, lowered his voice. He was solemn when he said, “We could.”

“I am not abandoning people,” she said, sharp. He narrowed his eyes. She said it to him, at him, but something about it felt like it wasn’t wholly for him.

“Clarke,” he tried again. “I’m not suggesting this because I want her to die.” He looked away and Clarke relented, calmed down for the first time since he had suggested they go together to look for supplies, because he was ashamed and he was struggling.

“I know.”

“I just want us to live.”

“I know.” Clarke nodded when he met her eyes. “I do know that, Bellamy. But we stick together. We save people. We do everything we can,” she said, recalling something her mother had said once, words she couldn’t recall being said but which came to her, seeping to the front of her mind where she stamped them indelibly a reminder, “so that we deserve to live.” She gripped his shoulder, making him look at her. “You can keep an eye on her, you can choose not to trust her. But you don’t hurt her and you don’t ever, ever tell me to leave someone behind again.”

After a few tense moments, Bellamy nodded.

Then, surprisingly, he laughed. “Things have changed since we were kids, huh?”

She relaxed enough to laugh with him. “Yeah.”

“Remember when we fought over those…” He clicked his fingers, trying to remember the name. “Fuck. What were they? Those shitty plastic spinning tops.”

“BeyBlades.”

“Yes. BeyBlades. God, I hated you so much because your dad-” she flinched but she always flinched and she had always flinched more and it hurt more when he stopped, when he dwelled on it, so he pressed on, “he bought you one of those good ones and you kept beating me.”

“I kept beating you because you were shit at it,” she argued. Then, “And because Dad bought me an actually decent one. Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

“ _Maybe_.”

They scoured the rest of the store in peace and then, they were done, made their way to the door. Bellamy walked slowly back to the bus and she matched his pace.

“We good?” he asked, gait and posture and tone nonchalant. Eyes that stayed locked on one place determinedly were less easy.

“Yeah. We’re good. You?”

“Yeah. You know I’ve got your back, Clarke,” he said.

“I know. You too.”

“Okay. Then the only thing we need to do is get everyone to safety.”

“Yeah.”

“You and me, Clarke. We can do that.”

He made it sound easy and she loved him for that. She stopped him, wrapped an arm around him and hugged him tight, gulping down the desire to cry when he immediately hugged her back.

“Aww,” their friends chorused and Bellamy and Clarke pulled apart and shot obscene gestures at the group.

“Get back to work,” Bellamy barked, and he deflated when they just laughed back at him. “Clarke? Help me out here.”

“You’re doing it wrong. You just have to look like you’re remembering seeing your friend die in front of you and what you’re asking them to do is the most important thing in the world” she said as lightly as she could, and the dark humour surprised a chuckle out of her friend. She closed her eyes and, when she opened them, even he felt like he should be taking a step back and saying yes ma’ams and no ma’ams at a word. “Guys. We need to keep moving. Get back to work.”

“Impressive.” Bellamy shook his head. “And terrifying.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure, you’re welcome.”

//

Clarke excused Octavia and Wells from the bus, making her way back to where Lexa sat.

“Do you have a plan?” Lexa asked her after a while of them sitting in silence.

Clarke let her head roll to the side, blinked tiredly over at her. “No.”

“They think you do.”

“Yes.”

She nodded and fell silent again as the other clambered onto the bus and into their seats. Clarke took a moment to fortify herself. Then she stood, smiled at her friends, and they set off again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, come say hi and talk about stories or read some prompts or rant about stuff

**Author's Note:**

> unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, come say hi and talk about stories or read some prompts or rant about stuff


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